


parchment pale

by webmenu



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Bonding Over Stationery, Canon Asexual Character, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Feel-Good (ish), Grief/Mourning, M/M, Meet-Cute, Mentions of Sex, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Pen Pals, Sharing Beverages, Smoking, The Archivist Has a Cane, The Sheer Intimacy of a Wax Sealed Envelope, librarian!jon, mental breakdowns, minor jealousy, not canon compliant!! no archives!!, postal service lovers, writing letters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:33:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24327328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/webmenu/pseuds/webmenu
Summary: "What is this," Martin looks up and asks, flatly.Sasha doesn't look all that phased or upset, but she trips over her words a bit like she is. "It's a — well, a pen-pal... thing! I ripped it off of the wall at the pub." Sasha rips everything off of the wall at the pub."And you want me to sign up for it." Martin squints, skeptically, and then adds as an afterthought, "there isno wayyou got this off of the wall at Harp & Crest."Tim and Sasha think that Martin ought to do something about this whole loneliness business.
Relationships: Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Past Martin Blackwood/Tim Stoker
Comments: 100
Kudos: 425





	1. dear yvette

The days pass so slow, lately. 

Martin wakes up to the sound of chirping fieldfares, the beginnings of main street traffic, and the quiet thrum of rain having a go at the concrete. He used to like all of the noise, really, but it irks him now. Just about _everything_ irks him now, or makes him unreasonably sad, or —

...The birds and the beeping and the downpour, it's all just a little bit too much. 

Martin sits up and kicks his legs over the side of his bed with vigor, pushes himself off of the bed with one elbow-shove of effort, and lets his bare feet hit the ground. The hardwood is bloody cold, and that makes him all the more irritated. He stands to slam his window shut, a little more forcefully than necessary, and winces at the noise.

He frowns at himself in the wet reflection of the glass pane and then draws the blinds closed, too.

(Martin wishes he could find his slippers. They've been missing for _months._ )

With a hand on the wall as his support, he makes his way to his kitchen, teetering and sluggish with every step he takes. He gives an utterly exhausted look to the thermostat just outside his bedroom door — it's a chilling 1°C today — and, as if on cue, he shudders so hard that it hurts. He shoves the sleeves down on his jumper so that they cover his palms and tries desperately to keep his body heat to himself. 

The calendar on his fridge says it's a Sunday. Martin sighs, something deep and low in his throat, and turns his back to it to dig somewhere deep in a cabinet, looking for something to brew. Sundays are when he used to call the nursing home to check up on his mum, and every weekend he'd get the same type of answers — _no,_ she doesn't want to talk, _yes,_ she's doing fine, _no,_ she doesn't want you to visit, _call back later_ — and he'd hang up feeling awful, but at least it was something to do. At least the nurse who picked up the phone, Wendy, was nice. She used to ask him how his days were.

He doesn't call the home at all anymore. There's no need to, nobody to check up on. He wonders if Wendy is doing well.

There's a lone tea bag on the third shelf, hidden behind all of the baking materials. He has to hold it up to his face to see it properly, and gives it nothing short of a grimace when he realizes it's chai. Martin also realizes, now, that he can't see all that well, and that his glasses are still on his bedside table.

Right. Cardamom chai is not the best tasting thing in the world, but it's something, and unfortunately for Martin, caffeine is the only thing that he can depend on anymore. 

He tries to think about where he got it from. A variety pack or maybe a gift? He's just assuming, because he doesn't think he would ever buy cardamom upon good conscience. He can't remember. He stops trying to remember.

So, Martin makes tea he doesn't like in a pot far too big for one person, and the doorbell rings while he's pouring some of it into a mug he hasn't washed in days. Filling the cup could've taken thirty seconds or thirty minutes; Martin can't tell which. His attention phases in and out these days.

The doorbell rings again while he's stirring some honey into it, and rings once more as he takes a sip. As expected, it doesn't taste good.

Then, there's a familiar knock, five taps in rampant succession and two more, somewhere lower on the door. 

He knows it's Tim and Sasha. It's always Tim and Sasha. It's never been anybody else, at least, given the state of his social life and the way it's been dwindling with his mourning this and depression that. On one hand, it tends to make him feel a bit pathetic: the fact that he used to know so many people, and the fact that he has to use the phrasing _past tense._ But maybe having a smaller circle is not all that bad. Sasha and Tim been keeping him afloat all this time without complaint, like it's an easy thing to do. And that's all he can ask for, isn't it? 

He grabs two more mugs from the shelf and fills them up, too.

"It should be open," he calls quickly, loud enough to hear from the opposite side of the door, and it opens just as swift. 

Familiar voices tumble in through the doorway. One is light, polite and snippy, and another, gruff and sarcastic and warm. They're bantering, like they usually do coming into Martin's flat, and he listens in to the overlapping argument of just how high a man should be cuffing his jeans. 

(Tim says that there's no such thing as too high of a cuff. Sasha says that a two-inch cuff is more than enough. Martin doesn't know where he falls on the matter.)

There's the noise of two pairs of boots being shucked off, dripping wet from the rain outside as they hit the ground, and following the sound is a very fond statement of, "Tim, you're the only person who would ever consider cuffing their trousers to the knee."

They aren't entirely unexpected or unwelcome, Martin considers, dipping his spoon into some more honey to sweeten up Sasha's tea and not bothering with Tim's (who drinks his tea like a heathen — sugarless and sad), but he wishes they would warn him first. A text, or something, just to let him know to clean up first. 

He runs a palm over the scruff on his chin, contemplates on hiding away in his bathroom to shave his patchy stubble, and then thinks that he should be fine. They've seen him in worse states than this, surely. (Have they? They have, haven't they?) Martin still takes a bit of precaution to ruffle up his bedhead before balancing all three mugs in his hands and making his way out to his friends.

"Hi." His voice is meek. "Tea."

It's quite dim there, in the living room, save for a window that Martin's yet to have shut the shutters on. It usually lets in a minimal amount of light, but even less so, now, given the weather outside. The rain's grown terribly thunderous and the rainclouds are doing a great job at hiding the sun. He can see the outline of the biggest pieces of furniture and that's about it. It's not a problem, because he mostly knows his way around by memory. 

But, apparently, despite so many late nights in at Martin's place, Tim doesn't. 

"Martin!" Tim exclaims, bright like the sun. He walks forward, arms open for a generous hug, and nearly trips over something absolutely obscured by darkness. It startles Martin so bad that he almost drops their tea, and Sasha stifles a little laugh. 

"Hello!" Sasha greets kindly, stepping around Tim carefully to get to Martin. He hands off her tea to her and she takes it with a high look of thanks, one that Martin has to squint at to see among the gloom in the room. 

She takes a nice, long sip from her mug, and then hums. "Ooh, thank you. That hits the spot — chai, is it? How did you know we were coming?" 

"Uh, I didn't. I made this just before you rung the doorbell and had an inkling it was you two." 

"Sorry for just barging in." She always apologizes for it, and never really seems sorry. She rubs at her eyes, her glasses tipping on her face a bit, and says, "We called a few times last night. You didn't pick up, and we were a bit worried, so we just came right over."

"Huh. Can't see shit in the Blackwood household." Tim sounds out from a few feet away, feeling along the wall with his hands. He bumps into something that sounds suspiciously hollow and tall, probably Martin's bookcase, and several objects fall to the floor. "Sorry. Can I turn on a light?"

"Sure," Martin says without much thought., "If you can find it."

After some time, Tim does find the light switch, and the lamp overhead flickers on. Martin takes the moment to hand Tim his mug of tea, and he lets out a low whistle as he accepts it. While he and Sasha survey the room, Martin takes a good look at them both. 

Sasha wasn't kidding when she confessed that they'd rushed right over. 

Her long, curly hair is tossed up in a high bun, frizzy from the rain, and there's a significant lack of jewelry on her — Sasha has always been one to keep up appearances, and copious amounts of accessorizing is just her thing. Her signature plum-colored lipstick is nowhere to be seen. She's in a frilly, nightie-looking slip dress with a hoodie over top. And Tim is dressed much the same: his hair is a little flat on one side but otherwise he looks just fine. He looks snuggled to hell in a pullover far too big for him and some plaid pajama bottoms.

Martin doesn't feel so bad about how he looks anymore. But he does feel bad about the state of his living room floor. 

"Wow, it sure is... awful, in here." Tim's concern and amazement is audible, looking over the clutter of the room like he's impressed by it. Sasha slaps a hand to her cheek and makes a sound like she's deflating. 

Martin tears his eyes away from the contours of Tim's face. Tim is right. It's not great. The light exposes a lot more than he was ready to see.

Yesterday night sort of comes back to him. 

It's an odd lineup of emotions in his mind. Martin tries hard to remember it all, but it's so pitiful that he stops halfway through. He recalls a few things: clinging to the very few nice moments he's ever shared with his mum, mourning the loss of someone who's taken care of him all his life, very pointed anger at his father for up and leaving, fear that it was his fault that his mum died unhappy. He'd forgotten how it started — he'd like to think that there's a reason for his behavior, rooting through everything that reminded him of his mum to have something to hold onto. But sometimes he just gets like this, and Martin's come to accept that — and he didn't care how it ends.

Everything is out of place. There's family memorabilia everywhere. There are vintage-looking knickknacks, old books slightly ajar, and scratched up vinyl records buried in shag rug under the coffee table. Some of the vinyls are broken. Lined pieces of paper that have small, quaint writing on them are ripped up like pieces of confetti, and they seem to be shoved into small piles, like Martin tried to clean up and just couldn't. The coffee table itself looks a little wounded as well, dented at the base.

Martin wonders how he could've forgotten he did this. He forgets a lot, lately. Probably could've stopped Tim and Sasha at the door, told them he's busy, or maybe just played it off as a messy room; but it's too much. He's been caught red-handed in the aftermath of a breakdown. 

It could all be poetic, maybe, if it wasn't such a miserable sight.

Martin warbles a bit on his feet like he's been pushed.

"Sorry," he apologizes sincerely, gulping down a rush of emotions that he doesn't want to confront right now and his voice breaks even though he really wishes it wouldn't, "I didn't know I got, um,"

"Oh, Martin," Sasha murmurs softly.

It's only a matter of time before there are a pair of slim arms around him, holding him so close and so tight that he feels like he'll pop. She smells like lavender and clean laundry, and this is the most comfort he's received in what feels like a decade. His jaw gets tight and his face gets hot and his nose starts to prick up, but he doesn't cry. He doesn't let himself.

It's not that he thinks he's too tough to cry. It's just that he's sick of crying in general. 

He lays his head on the top of Sasha's, sighs deep into her curls, and tries to blink back his tears. It works, mostly. 

"It's okay to grieve, still," she says into the warm space between his head and shoulder. . 

But Martin is sick of grieving, too.

Sasha lets go, reluctantly. Her hand lingers on the sleeve of Martin's jumper before she steps all the way back to give him some room. He notices Tim, out of the corner of his eye, who's taken to help cleaning up the area. He's folding up his mum's old quilt and shutting a jewelry box on the ground with the heel of his foot at the same time. His throat gets tight again.

Martin tries to do the same as Tim. Soon enough, Sasha's joined them, trying to clean up in little ways. Tim picks up a broken piece of vinyl with his bare hands and Sasha makes it a point to smack his grasp away; it drops back into the shag rug and disappears like it's always belonged there. They bicker over it, like they bicker over everything, and it fades into the background as Martin makes eye contact with an open photo album on the floor. 

The page is flipped to a much happier time in his life, and Martin sees himself: age 6, maybe age 7, at his first ever big birthday party located in the backyard of his childhood home. Right before his dad left. Right before his mum started to hate him. 

It's a shoddy image, taken with a disposable camera older than time and developed so poorly that there are blotches on the image. But it's him, young and blindfolded and laughing, rosy-cheeked and freckles on display, wielding a bat more than half his size and wearing two party hats. And his mum is behind him, hand on his shoulder, sporting some very early 90's typical fashion. In this photo, she's laughing. She looks young. She looks healthy. She looks happy.

Martin wonders who took the image.

He crouches a bit to close the album. 

It's been six months. He misses his mum _all the time._

Is it normal, to miss someone so much, even when they didn't like you to begin with? When all they did was mistreat you when you tried to love them? How is he meant to cope with the fact that she's gone, now? Martin assumes that if it was him who'd passed, his mum wouldn't miss him like this. His mum would probably sell all of his things and then use his funeral brochure as a dartboard.

He fights with himself over everything, but this is the toughest conflict to date. He loved his mum so much and she did everything in her power to prove she felt otherwise. Martin can't keep doing this, though: he's ready to learn how to let it go. He's been ready to learn how to let it go for a long time now. 

Martin breathes heavily and turns on his heel to face Tim and Sasha. He squares his shoulders and his jaw. "Want to sit?"

The best thing about Tim and Sasha is that they're quick to pretend like an emotionally charged moment never happened, for the sake of comfort. 

"Okay,"

"Let's take the floor." Tim plops down without a care in the world, his hands cradling his mug like a newborn, and then groans. Sasha makes a concerned noise, to which he responds, "My fucking knees. Christ, am I getting old?"

"Sure," Sasha's voice is a phenomenal balance of fond and venomous, "let's sit on the fluff rug, with all of the hidden broken sharp bits in it instead of the couches."

And it's not a comment meant for him, but it still sends a pang through Martin's heart. It's his fault, anyway. "M'Sorry," he frowns, and Sasha sends him a sad look.

Sasha, just as careful not to spill her tea as Tim was, sits on the floor next to him. She crosses her legs under her and is on the ground in seconds. Martin seats himself directly across from them, lowers himself down slowly with one arm so as to handle all of his weight, and then gently hits the ground. The tea in his other hand just barely spills out of its' mug. He uses the couch behind him to support his back.

Then there's silence. If Tim and Sasha are doing that thing where they communicate with their eyes instead of their words, he doesn't see it — his eyes are trained on the lint on the hem of his sweatpants.

After awhile, they clear their throats at the same time. Martin looks up.

"We actually came over for a reason," Sasha confesses, just as Martin's opening his mouth to start idle conversation, and then starts to root through her messenger bag furiously. Martin raises his eyebrow.

Any acquaintance of Sasha's will know that it holds everything you'd ever need — any friend of hers will know that you have to dig to find it. She pulls out a pale pink, crinkled paper, an advertisement printed on what looks like faux parchment, and holds it out.

Martin takes it and inspects it like it's his job.

It's labelled at the top in neat, handwritten scrawl. 'DEAR YVETTE,' in big, bold letters, and underneath is an explanation: 'UK BASED PEN-PAL ORGANIZATION'. A very 1800's-looking illustration of a woman practicing her penmanship is stamped just underneath, and around her is information that's meant to sell the whole idea — making new friends in your area! A development of social skills and comprehension! Make memories! — and while the flyer itself is very pretty, Martin finds himself looking upon it with confusion and a bit of dismay.

There is no way they want him to do this. 

Is there?

"What is this," Martin looks up and asks, flatly. 

Sasha doesn't look all that phased or upset, but she trips over her words a bit like she is. "It's a — well, a pen-pal... thing! I ripped it off of the wall at the pub." Sasha rips everything off of the wall at the pub.

"And you want me to sign up for it." Martin squints, skeptically, and then adds as an afterthought, "there is no way you got this off of the wall at Harp & Crest."

"What? No! Never. I got it from the Spade. It was either this or signing you up to a poetry competition without your permission." Sasha shrugs and tucks a stray curl behind her ear. "Slam poetry. Tim and I thought you could win, so I've got the poster in my bag, if you want to see it—"

"Slam poetry?" Martin's voice is carefully level, trying not to let disappointment show through as he hands the paper back to Sasha, but he's never been too good at that sort of thing, "You have a phenomenal misunderstanding of the way I express myself. No thank you. To any of this. Look, I really appreciate it, but I..."

Tim cuts him off with a huff at the same time that Sasha's face falls, and that makes Martin ache all over. The last thing he wants to do is make them upset, but he doesn't get it, not really. Doesn't understand why this has been associated with him, or why it should make him feel better. Having a penpal is a neat idea, sure, but he's just not sure if he's that type of person. He doesn't see himself as someone who'll sit down with a good cuppa and pour his heart out in letters to someone he doesn't even know. He's bad at socialization, in real life and over text, so what about wielding a pen would make that different?

Sasha starts to fold up the advertisement, and Tim looks a little distraught, like they had nothing else planned for this little visit of theirs. And it eats Martin up from the inside. 

It occurs to Martin, all at once, that today, they visited just to try and help him. They thought of him. 

Because, well. Tim and Sasha, they only have Martin's best interest at heart. Obviously, they have his best interest at heart. It's always Tim and Sasha. Something in Martin keels over in guilt for being ticked off at them for presenting the idea.

It would be unfair not to give their ideas a chance. They're here for him. Martin gives a decision maker's sigh, contemplative and begrudging.

Martin shoves away his pride away, swallows it back along with his self-pity and despair, and with his attitude a little short at the idea that he's giving in, he says, "Okay. What's the point?"

Sasha almost immediately brightens up again, unfolding the pink Dear Yvette paper. Tim seems to do the same, although he's a bit less animated; his back straightens up with an easy confidence, like a goddamn salesman, and Martin almost regrets folding to this whole penpal business. 

"I mean, let's see," Tim follows, like he's had this prepared all the while, like he was expecting Martin to kick back — which, yeah, but ouch, — "the pros are that you want to talk to more people, but you don't want to talk to more people. And you want your life to get back to normal, but you don't want to leave the house. Retro vintage is your thing, right, and you own a lot of stationery already!"

"Sounds convincing," Martin rolls his eyes, and it comes off as a little less peeved and a little more compliant than he would have liked, "what's the catch?" 

Tim leans into Sasha, sips his tea slowly, and propositions, "The con is that you might get paired up with a 62 year old lady mourning the death of her cat. And that's highly likely, but it's not that bad. Could be worse, yeah?"

Martin hums under his breath. Could definitely be worse — it has certainly been worse before. He thinks back to some more recent times, where he's tried to put himself back into the world before he was ready.

A few weeks ago, when Tim had invited him out to the bar for a drink after work, he began sobbing uncontrollably at the table for practically no reason. Tim, thankfully, wasn't upset, and escorted him back to his flat with a comforting hand on his lower back and a soothing coo. Another time previous, when he thought he could drink away his sorrows at a different half-empty pub, some pretty girl tried to get his number, and he'd embarrassed himself trying to turn her down. Far before that was a quaint get-together with Sasha, her twin sister, and two of their college friends that he can't remember the names of: a spunky, short brunette with overgrown bangs and broad-shouldered lass with a dirty blonde mullet and far too many struggle scars to count. He'd spilled hot soup on the latter and, upon receiving a snarl, decided it was time for him to go. 

Dear Yvette. Develop social skills. 

He sure as hell could use it.

Tim and Sasha... they're trying. And Martin can see that they're trying, so desperately, to help him be the Martin they once knew in whatever way they can. He used to be the Martin that never passed up a local trivia night. The Martin that would offer to do anything with you anywhere, even if it was grocery shopping. The Martin who prepared elaborate sleepovers and get-togethers at Tim's flat after a stressful work week because pretty soon, they'll be too busy and too old to watch Princess Diaries and drink wine without worrying about the consequence it has on tomorrow.

Martin sort of misses that side of himself, too. 

Sasha uncrosses her legs and pulls them up to her chest, holding them close, chin resting on her knees, and stares hopefully. Tim looks just as tired as Martin feels, underneath that calm, confident, expectant grin. He hasn't shaved in a bit, too, stubble taking up the better half of his face, and the bags under his eyes are horrendous. Martin knows he's part of this issue. Tim and Sasha have had to look after him and take care of him lately. It makes him feel terrible, first, for taking up all their time, and grateful to have such a support system, second. 

This is the least he can do. If he convinces himself it's for them, for the two people who do nothing but support him, it's a little bit easier for him to swallow.

"Right." Martin huffs out, lowly, and takes a long drink of the chai tea he does not like until it's gone. "Right, okay. How do I..."

"Okay, see here," Sasha explains excitedly. She puts her mug on the floor beside her and uses both hands to both hold and point to the paper, "you sign up with the email at the bottom, and they tell you all of the guidelines and stuff. Then you get paired up with a pen-pal already in the system or something? I don't know how that part works." 

"We can figure it all out together." Tim waves it off. "Who knows. Maybe if you get paired up with an absolute academic hunk of a man, I'll think about doing this whole penpal thing, too. For you and your romance, I'm thinking an unrequited storyline, Lemony Snickett style. Separated by distance. Forbidden mail carrier lovers."

"I can put a good few pounds on the fact that you've never read a Lemony Snickett book in your life, ever. Not once." Martin prods back, "You're lacking an important childhood experience." 

"Uh, wrong! I read the back of the books at my local library, like, two months ago. Fuck off."

Sasha buries her face in her hands, shoulders jumping with laughter. "God, do you guys ever stop?" 

Martin breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth, just like he was taught to. He thinks something along the lines of, 'well, what's the worst that could happen?' and then stops himself from letting the thought breach his lips.

This could be good, he considers instead.

Maybe he'll like writing letters.


	2. on parchment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And, lastly, is Martin K. Blackwood your real name? I'm not particularly asking if it's your birthname, but if that's the name you go by on an everyday basis. 
> 
> I look forward to your self-introduction, your answers, and perhaps any questions of your own that you'd like to ask me. 
> 
> Yours on parchment,   
> J. S.

Jon swirls his tea around in his plastic cup, just to disrupt the boba inside and watch it settle to the bottom again. 

If Jon were a little more imaginative, there could be something said about how terribly calming it can be to make a mess of things, just to watch it all fall back into perfect tandem in the end. There's an odd sort of easiness in realizing that everything will return to its former state — even boba tea, as mundane as it is. 

It serves as a perfect reminder to Jon that life goes on whether he likes it or not. The world will still spin, plants will grow, the shine will rise and set... and boba will always want to settle at the bottom of his cup, no matter what he does. 

The beep of the breakroom microwave startles him out of his stupor. It's easy for him to get lost like that, sometimes, in his own thoughts. Small things that hardly matter. It beeps again, sort of sad and neglected, and Jon taps his cane twice on the floor.

"Georgie," he calls out to his coworker who's mostly preoccupied with a task that hurts to watch: flirting with fellow colleague, assistant librarian Melanie King. King's a bit red in the face, which is quite a shocking, uncommon and frankly embarrassing sight. Jon can hear Elias' voice wavering in the back of his head now: _absolutely no intimate fraternization in the workplace._

Not like anyone's ever listened to that. Elias included.

She looks up from her place in the room, sitting on the very edge of the table where Melanie is sitting to eat chocolate pudding, legs crossed at the ankles. She looks over her shoulder and Melanie shoots him a glare for interrupting. "Huh?"

"Your soup's done." 

The microwave cries once more. Georgie makes a noncommittal murmur, waves him off with her manicured nails. "Make it stop beeping for me? I'll be over in a second." 

With an overly dramatic sigh, he opens the door and closes it again. And while he's at it, he throws his cup away, too.

Jon looks up to the clock, ticking at a sharp 1:59 in the afternoon. Right as the time turns to the next hour, the doors to the room slam open, preceded only by a completely full cart of books. The squeaking of the wheels draws everyone's attention at once and Georgie flat out groans. 

"Needs to be shelved by clock-out," is the first thing Daisy says. Basira is not too far behind her, a thin book tucked underneath her arm. Melanie mutters a string of curses under her breath.

 _Shelved by clock-out_ is a phrase that sparks a lot of agony in the Magnus Civic Library breakroom. It doesn't affect him much at all — he's just the archivist here, after all, and deals with a much different set of documents — but he understands it all the same. Their boss has a nasty habit of planting books on his workers at the worst hours. It mainly irritates him because hearing Melanie complain about it the day after has gotten tiring, but watching Georgie idly rub at her sore arms while sitting behind the front desk is a little upsetting, too. 

Daisy parks the cart by the window and immediately makes her way to the coffee pot, clapping Melanie on the shoulder and giving Georgie an acknowledging look as she passes their table. 

"I always hate to see you, Daisy. You make me tense even without the cart." Melanie greets her, good-naturedly. 

"Classical conditioning," Jon says, pulling his cardigan closed, "Pavlov's resting easy."

Georgie tsks and Daisy gives Jon a friendly side-eye and laughs. It's crooked, short, and creaky, but it's warm nonetheless: one short 'ha!' as she turns her back to the rest of the room to whip up some caffeine. "Such is common for the Welsh."

He watches her stand on the tips of her toes to grab a mug from a high shelf.

Jon quite likes Daisy. He's always had a soft spot for her, and of course it's because she comes off as very prickly and standoffish. She's always came across as an odd-one-out, even among the more eccentric crowd at the library. It was a shock to hear that Elias had opted to hire a new library aide last September and a relief to know that she was tolerable. She's someone who's actions speak louder than words — it's nice to recall the many smoking sessions they share together (Daisy's cigarettes are never the cheap ones, and she lets him light up with her without much fuss), her gentle prodding on his most tense days, and how careful she is to speak about him and his cane. 

Jon would even go as far as to call them friends.

And that's a nice thought, isn't it? A _friend._ A friend from the workplace, but a friend nonetheless. 

Georgie and Jon were friends in uni. They dated until she saw the worst in him, and while she was gentle, she was firm. They'd fallen out of touch other than a few texts every now and again. They're doing a damn good job, recently, at getting reacquainted, but Jon can confess that it's always been easy to get along with her. And Jon and Melanie are something like friends, if friends hurled passive-aggressive insults at one another like dodge balls and constantly undermined each other's success. They're close in that they share the same workplace and sometimes trade backhanded compliments. Basira and Jon spend a lot of time together by nature of their matching statuses; curators and archivists share the same space, but Basira seems to prefer reading and researching to any social proclivity. 

Otherwise, he doesn't talk much to anyone else. 

He'll take Daisy as a friend any day.

Jon takes a look around and lets himself go idle, taking in the surroundings and the sights. He sees this place everyday, but there's nothing quite like zoning out.

The library's breakroom is smaller and perhaps a little nicer than it should be. It looks, to Jon, like it used to be an old workroom, repurposed into something the staff can better benefit from. And he supposes it makes sense; the library is less like an institute and more of a heavily gentrified elementary school.

The counters where the microwave and coffeepot sit are actually file cabinets pushed up against the wall — it’s upsetting from an interior design perspective, Georgie tends to muse. The cupboards overhead look like they should be holding stacks of copy paper but, instead, hold a plethora of snacks and mugs that are too far up for Jon to reach on his own. To save himself some embarrassment, he usually just brings his own food. On top of their mini-fridge is a malfunctioning fax machine, out of order but plugged into the wall regardless. 

...But the floors are tiled, the windows actually open, and the air conditioning works — sometimes, a little too well, Jon thinks, adjusting the collar on his turtleneck. But it’s more than enough.

Then all at once, he finds he's been too idle. They've started a fully-fledged conversation without him. He attempts to pay attention. 

"It doesn't make sense," Georgie insists as Jon tries to tune back in, glossy lips pursed and eyebrows creased in some very particular dismay. "I just don't think the historical fiction and the scientific fiction should be placed on two opposite sides of the library. Does that feel, I don't know, _wrong_ to anyone else, in a deeply personal and primal way?"

Jon looks around. He guesses the topic is criticizing Elias, a very common course in the breakroom. He looks to check if the door is closed — it is, thankfully. The amount of neutral nods that float about tells Jon that they get it to some degree, but Melanie most so, of course; the way she stirs her pudding gets a little more vigorous. "They're both fiction," she mutters, "our library director is just a prick."

"You've asked to make changes to the organization?" Jon questions. "Assuming you've been able to see him, of course."

"Of course I have. I've a written appeal and everything," she responds, "he just doesn't seem to care." 

"Why don't you ask Elias about the shelving, Jon, since you're his favorite?" Melanie insists boldly, and Jon rolls his eyes. A little voice in the back of his mind reminds him that Melanie's, unfortunately and painfully, right. "No, seriously! It's the only way we'll get anything done around here. Elias loves his archivist."

The way she says it is vengeful, like she thinks having Elias' attention on him at all times is a good thing, and it almost makes him feel ill. 

He looks to Georgie with a pleading look. Something along the lines of _make her stop,_ although appealing to Daisy would do the job much better. Georgie shrugs in response — pity — and says, "Melanie has a point, you know. Use that charm of yours to convince him to let us make a little bit of change around here."

"I don't even know why I'm still here." Jon huffs, unwilling to confess that he absolutely would, if Elias didn't make him deeply uncomfortable in ways he can hardly describe with words. He crosses his arms over his chest and nearly loses his footing trying to do so. "I don't even know why I take my lunch with you lot anymore. I'm not even eating here."

"You never do." Daisy points out unhelpfully, but thankfully returns the subject of conversation to whence it came; "if Elias wasn't a horrible tosser of a man, you'd only have to ask once. I'm sure he ignores requests out of spite."

"You're right!” Melanie reels, jumping back onto the re-emerged topic with zeal, "can't stand the bastard. Won't lie to you, right, all he knows how to do is stretch our budget to order books older than time and then get miffed when we can't shelve them before the weekend is up. How in the hell are we supposed to put up that cart Daisy rolled in by 5? Do you know how many copies of _The Cherry Orchard_ we have in stock?"

Georgie makes an utterly grossed out noise. "That book can go to hell." Jon disagrees with the sentiment, as he quite likes _The Cherry Orchard,_ and has read it several times.

"We have eleven copies of _The Cherry Orchard,"_ someone clarifies solidly from the corner farthest from him, but it sounds loud in his ears, and Jon just about jumps out of his cardigan.

He allows his eyes follow the voice. It’s Basira. Of _course,_ it's Basira. He remembers watching her walk in, but the way she fades into the background can be a fright. It doesn't help that she's incredibly stealth. When Jon sees her, she's camouflaged in broad daylight, tucked away neatly between a wall and a pillar, her nose buried in a copy of _Go Ask Alice._ She licks her middle finger and uses it to flip to a new page with a satisfying _schwip._

Jon narrows his eyes and swears in the back of his mind that Basira’s been reading that same book for months now. 

Melanie scoffs, and then repeats incredulously, "Eleven!" 

Daisy whistles, low and long. Her back is to the rest of breakroom, still, mixing creamer and milk into her mug. "Somebody has a thing for Chekhov," she states, and when she turns around to face everyone she looks horribly unimpressed.

 _I have a thing for Chekhov,_ Jon thinks absentmindedly, and then frowns. _No, definitely can't say that out loud._

"You're joking," Georgie says to Melanie, sounding properly miffed. Jon sometimes forgets how seriously Georgie takes her job. "Eleven copies? I'm the head librarian. How did that get approved without my say so?"

"Elias does what he wants." Daisy reminds her. "Remember that ordeal with Jon at our last all-purpose meeting?"

Acknowledging hums abound the room. Melanie hums a bit too hard for it to be polite, and Jon knows she's about to rev up again. He squares and humbles himself.

"Ooh, yeah. Any updates on your Dear Yolanda thing, Sims?" Melanie asks in a tone Jon can only describe as King-typical malice, sharp and mean-spirited. He shoots her a look, and Daisy tries to cover up her subsequent smile behind the rim of her coffee mug. Melanie King's mockery is not unusual, and it's unfortunate that her ridicule usually regards him. She cocks a thin eyebrow at him, expectant and challenging. 

"Dear Yvette," he corrects, corners of his mouth turned to a frown. "I've found a new match."

Georgie leans in with a very real amount of interest, tone bright. "Do tell!"

And, suddenly, everyone's eyes are on him.

What is there to say, really, about Dear Yvette? 

It's a penpal program started by the Magnus Civic Library itself and pinned on Jon's back. He'd suggested it once in a populatory meeting as a throwaway idea to get Elias to leave him alone, but the varlet takes everything too seriously, and receiving that follow-up email asking to 'explore more ideas' certainly inspired some feelings of agony. 

It's a small thing, hardly a proper organization, and despite it being his idea, Jon facilitates a very little piece of it. A manager, he could call himself, but a better fitting title would be "poster child." It's not all bad, though. Writing is something he likes to do, and it's hard to pretend that it doesn't bring in more traction to the library. 

Matching in Dear Yvette is a poor game of Russian Roulette, with little guidelines and even less security. They've a pretty nice website where you sign up, sign in, put in a very minimal amount of information, and get matched pretty haphazardly. It puts a bad taste in his mouth. But Jon is a representative, and Elias insists it would be amiss for him to refrain from using the program as well. 

"His name is Martin K. Blackwood," Jon tells them, hardly keeping the contempt for the name off of his tongue. It sounds silly. It sounds unrealistic. He hates the name, and unfairly so. "I know nothing about him other than the fact that he lives in Wimbledon and his friends coerced him to sign up. Apparently, he heard about it from an advert in the Spade. Ones that I thought I had asked you to take down in January, Melanie."

"You did," Melanie snorts. Another spoonful of pudding goes into her mouth. It clangs audibly against her teeth, and he hates that noise, and he’s sure she does it just to spite him. She pulls it out, completely clean, and uses it to point directly at Jon as she continues, "but instead, when we got there, I got hammered and threw up on Daisy's trainers."

Georgie throws her head to the side and lets out a muted laugh like she's trying her hardest to be courteous, Basira huffs a bit through her nose as she turns the page in her book with another schwp, and Daisy makes an utterly disgusted noise somewhere in the back of her throat as she reminisces. "Absolutely fuming. All over my Adidas."

Jon grabs the heel of his cane for stability.

"Can we talk about the name Martin K. Blackwood, though?" Georgie asks through everyone's laughter, "Sort of prestigious. Mysterious. A man on a white horse with a feather behind his ear. "

The majority population is in love with the idea. Everyone except for Jon, the clear outlier, who is plainly impassive, eyebrows knitted together with a noted lack of interest. "Some cavalier, dashing poet," Basira gives her input.

"Truly. A fine man of intelligence who signs up for a penpal program against his will must be at his peak." Jon responds with distaste. "I just hope his personality doesn't match his name."

"What, dreamy?" Melanie spurs. "It's a nice name, Jon! What, afraid you'll fall in love with him?" 

Jon wants to stick his tongue out at her but figures it's too childish. "No. Haughty. But he's the first person I've matched with in a long time, and I've apparently been lacking on my quota. Whatever that means." He pushes himself up off of the side of the cabinet where the microwave sits, grabs his cane, and takes a look at the clock once more. 2:15. "Lunch is over for the best of us."

"Already?" Georgie frowns, and slides down off of her seat on the table, stretching upwards like a cat before settling down. She scratches at her shoulder, bare from a lack of sleeve, and it's only now that Jon notices the break in dress code — one that Elias doesn't enforce. "Feels like we just got here."

"That's lunch for you." Melanie crushes her pudding cup, surprisingly empty with no residue, with one hand. "I'll get the cart."

Jon waves them out, and gets ready to leave, himself. He's got his own work to do.

* * *

It's not after hours, per say, but half of the staff has checked out. 

Jon can hear Daisy roaming around outside of his office like she's on the prowl. She paces like she's doing laps when everything clears out. Georgie is doing a bit of cleaning up to the front desk and reorganizing some files on the checkout computer. Jon has no idea how she has the patience to deal with that thing. For all of the funding that comes into the library, their technology is disconcertingly outdated.

The glow of the afternoon is starting to fade subtly and it gives the head archivist's office a nice atmosphere. The whirring of an old radio buzzes throughout the room, and while he doesn't know where it's coming from, he welcomes the noise. 

He's lit a candle to write by — he's dramatic and secretly loves to fall into the role of a Victorian prince communicating with a someone new, but he needs to use the wax to seal his envelope, anyhow. He fishes in the top drawer of his desk for a pen, and...

Jon begins his letter.

 _Dear Martin,_ he starts in his best penmanship, something carefully curated over a number of years. It's borderline cursive, sitting strictly in between the lines of the paper like transcript. The ink settles perfectly into the parchment and a feeling of satisfaction sits calmly in his chest. 

_I hope this letter finds you well. My name, as I'm sure you've seen stated on the face of the envelope already, is Jonathan Lee Sims. I live in London, I'm middle-aged, and I'm left-handed._

_I'll keep this short, since this is our first time talking._

_Beginning a relationship with a pen-pal can be difficult. First letters are always the hardest. In a lot of ways, it feels like I'm trying to sell someone my personality. I've been writing with Dear Yvette for a few months now, my workplace being its founder and me, one of its' many ambassadors, and I find that it can be hard to catch someone's interest through pen & paper. Contrastingly, I find that this traditional method of communication is still very charming. I prefer writing over texting or typing, mostly because I'm horrid with technology and I'm a bit of an old soul. _

_I get bored with basic questions; "what's your favorite color?" just doesn't do it for me, and everyone always says their favorite color is blue. Everyone. Here are a few queries that hopefully aren't stale._

_Who's your favorite author? (I'll be disappointed if you confess that you don't read much, and confused if you prefer sports over reading.) Do you prefer tea or coffee? What is your favorite song and why? Do you have any recurring dreams or nightmares? Do you believe in fate?_

_And, lastly, is Martin K. Blackwood your real name? I'm not particularly asking if it's your birthname, but if that's the name you go by on an everyday basis._

_I look forward to your self-introduction, your answers, and perhaps any questions of your own that you'd like to ask me._

_Yours on parchment,  
J. S. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what is UP you guys i started this chapter two weeks ago and wrote a majority of it in 3 hours. i hope the introduction of all the characters isn't TOO clunky here... their dynamics will be expanded upon in the near future! also daisyjon and daisymelanie contrasting friendships are VERY important to my health 
> 
> office gossip, flirting, fond thoughts, first letters (that tim and sasha may or may not be reviewing once it makes its way to casa de blackwood) and eucgh elias 
> 
> i hope you lot enjoy! thank you to j-dogg for beta'ing you're a real one. have a good day everyone!


	3. in papermate inkjoy pen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dear Jon,
> 
> I'm, as I'm sure you know by now as well, Martin K. Blackwood! I also live in London, I'm quite a bit younger than middle-aged (I've just turned 28,) and I'm right-handed. It's a pleasure to be writing to you.
> 
> First of all, my favorite color is blue. Funny, that.
> 
> Second, I've never been someone's penpal before! You say that the first letters are the hardest, but it seems that you've got it nailed to a science, down to the fancy envelope and neat handwriting and everything!

Martin had found himself a place in the world, if only just briefly. 

He'd opened the window beside his bed late last night — sluggishly pushed the dull beige curtains aside, raised the blinds, even lifted the dirty pane, for no other reason than to just do it. It was just a simple wish sitting in the back of his head, an impulse he felt with no outcome that he could find reason in. It let in a lot of cold, mid-March air and the smell of frigid, wet earth after it's rained. 

It was one of the very few nights where the street outside of his flat was completely silent. And it's awfully rare when that happens.

Wimbledon isn't exactly the quaintest area. Martin lives off of one of those roads where, apparently, someone always needs an ambulance or needs to beep their horn or is enduring a heated argument with their significant other on the sidewalk. The teens of the area are also poorly mannered and quite terrifying _(rebellious and raving for freedom from The Man, as Tim would say,)_ and it's not unlikely to hear British Invasion blaring from any which way, deep into the night.

If it's not the people kicking up a fuss, it's the atmosphere. The barn swallows usually sing far past midnight and the crickets nearby can get loud. That obnoxious sound of rain hitting the concrete out front makes him anxious.

But there was none of that.

Instead, there was a dark, endless sky, so wide and void of anything that Martin'd just wanted to get lost in it. No blinking airplanes overhead, flying high enough to mistake it for a shooting star holding false promises, but close enough to hear it hum. No constellations partially obscured by buildings so tall and wide that they seem to touch the stratosphere. Most curiously, no cars on the street. 

He'd stood there awhile, partially wrapped snug in mum's quilt and feet pressed flush against the terribly cold floor. 

You can get lost in a thing like that, a liminal space that feels like it was made just for you. It’s just so easy. And he would've, if he hadn't gotten so bloody tired 15 minutes after.

A few hours later, Martin gets up early enough to see the sunrise.

Martin’s eyes flutter open. He’s almost completely unaware that he’d fallen asleep in the first place — doesn’t remember feeling too fatigued, but definitely remembers laying down. He watches the plaid sheets bundled up around his feet slowly grow warm with morning light.

Everything is so bright, and he just _knows_ that it’s early. On a bad day, he'd close his eyes, flip onto his side, and try desperately to go back to sleep. But today is going to be a good day. He knows it is, because the sky is pale pink and cloudless and he’s had a good rest and everything.

He tries his hardest to soak up the quiet sunrise while it lasts. He turns his face towards the window, unhurried and gentle, and lays absolutely still underneath his duvet, like moving could cause the illusion will shatter.

 _It could,_ he thinks. He yawns, and a few cars pass by on the road. _It very well might._

Martin then hears a jovial shout from outside, and he's nosy, so he props himself up on the base of his arm to peer out the window from where he lays. He makes sure to grab his glasses from his bedside table and slides them on haphazardly. 

Across the street from his flat, a carpool pulls up to the curb just outside the _Page Carriage,_ a bookstore that Martin used to frequently visit after its busy hours, when the regular customers clear out and all that remains are employees and academically unstable college students. It's a small thing, made of pink brick and nestled in between a Mediterranean food joint and a vintage thrift boutique, one that opened just after his mum passed, and thus has never been visited by him.

He wonders if maybe, some day, he’ll work up the nerve to leave the house and ask Tim and Sasha if they want to go shopping or something. Grab some souvlaki after.

That’d be nice. 

Five young adults tumble out of the small truck. A tall, pallid man in a rather impressive amount of gothic attire leads his group into the book shop, and the short blonde at the back of the group closes the door behind them, but not before saying something that has the lad in front of her laughing so hard that he has to clutch his stomach and keel over.

Martin’s attention turns to the people who ride their bikes without helmets past them. They're in groups of two or four, taking up the entire cycle lane just to be beside one another.

A girl with long, bright red hair is somehow keeping her Huffy balanced as she leans into her friend’s _(girlfriend’s?)_ space. She kisses her quickly on the cheek. The front wheel of her bike swerves and then steadies as she pulls away, having left a mark of lipstick on the cheek of her partner. They both laugh, seemingly incredulously, in one of those _I-can't-believe-that-worked_ ways that's observable even from afar.

Martin sort of feels taken. He’s catching himself feeling fond for these people he's never met, the pure joy they radiate, these situations he can only see from his window. 

Then his heart starts to ache.

He recalls some times like those. Close to the time before his mum passed, he’d allowed Tim and Sasha to help take his mind off of things. Martin vaguely remembers the way he led Tim into Page Carriage on a frosty afternoon, holding hands while navigating the nonfiction. And Sasha eventually caught up with them, a little later because she’d stopped to grab coffee. _That_ is a cloudier image in his head, but he does know that she’d waltzed in all bright-eyed, blatantly ignoring the _‘no food or drinks!’_ sign on the pinstripe patterned wall.

Martin wants to smile about it, because it's a happy memory, one of the more recent ones that he can remember, but his lower lip starts to quiver instead.

He misses them. Is that alright to say?

They visit at least twice a week, bring him food and cheap wine and support, never asking for too much in return because they know he needs them, that they’ll help him find his footing. But Monopoly Sasha is a lot different from _forgot-she's-chauffeuring, three-drinks-in-at-the-pub Sasha._ Watching her throw around faux money is just as fun as listening to her ramble about an ex of an ex after a big sip of something Tim promised he’d take the bill for, but then Martin thinks about how many drunken tales he’s missed out on recently and wilts.

He misses being with them, with no threat of his own emotional instability wrecking the night. Misses experiencing things they’ve done plenty of times before to make note of any new variable, any new outcome. 

_No,_ he reaffirms to himself, _today is going to be a good day._ He wipes at the tears dripping from his chin and sniffs. He doesn’t even know why he’s crying. The rest of the bed around him feels cold.

Maybe, if he had someone around constantly, he'd stop getting like this — stop worrying about what could be, what used to be and what isn’t, and look forward to the future. All Martin seems to do these days is forget, cry, reminisce, and watch reruns of _The Young Ones._

Martin washes his laundry, lethargic and tired at the end of every other week, thinking it wouldn’t be so bad if he had to do another load, and thinks that it wouldn't be so bad to share the bed so long as he gets to lay with the quilt. Sometimes, he cooks for two, and puts up a plate as though he's waiting on someone to come home. 

All of that implies a future. That there will be a tomorrow with someone he’d want to be with for a long time. And that— 

His phone rings, and startles himself out of the beginnings of a truly convoluted and complicated line of thought. He groans and screws his eyes shut. He feels around on his bedside table for his phone, narrowly avoiding an empty water bottle, answers with his eyes still closed, and presses the phone to his cheek.

"Hi, Tim," Martin guesses, because nobody else calls these days.

"Not Tim. It's the funnier, sexier one." 

There are some deeply unhappy remarks from Tim, clearly also in the vicinity, but it’s unintelligible to his sleepy ears. He rubs the sleep out of his eyes with the palm of his hand. "I know it's early, but we're gonna swing by, yeah? Coming from the library."

"Sure," Martin responds, a bit belated, “um, what time is it? Also, why the library?"

"It’s about eleven. Had to drop something off. Remember that small lass with the witch laugh from my little housewarming party? Melanie?" Martin hums an idle response. "Yeah, she works at Magnus Civic with Daisy now. Way better than that urban exploration gig she had a while back. We hung out yesterday at mine and she left her wallet. Had a look at her ID — she's five feet tall and her middle name is Eloise."

"Melanie Eloise King. Huh.”

Tim chimes in, "Don't let Sash fool you. She just wanted to flirt with the new receptionist. Rosie, innit? Spent a whole twenty minutes chatting her up."

"Uh, not true."

"So true," Tim insists, "definitely true. You insisted that I should fix your hair for you in the car and then asked me how you looked three times at the door. I’m not dumb.” and then mutters something like, _“fuckers in Wimbledon drive so poorly.”_

Sasha is just as adamant. "And you didn't answer me! So if I was trying to impress Rosie — which I wasn't — but if I was, I'd have no frame of reference for how good I looked while trying to do it." Martin can hear the pout in her voice. Tim and Sasha carry on like that, bantering back and forth, and Martin listens in passively. 

He slowly lumbers up and slides off of the side of his bed — shivers like hell when his duvet slides off of him and yelps quietly into his phone as his toes touch the ground. If he starts tearing up out of sheer frustration with the winter weather, well, that's none of anyone else's business.

Standing, and only half-ready to face the day, he looks around his messy room for slippers that he knows aren't present.

"I wish I could find my slippers," He says into his phone without much thought.

"Buy a new pair?" Sasha suggests, simultaneous to Tim's distant approach of, "put on some socks, maybe?"

Martin thinks about both proposals for a moment. "Mm, no. Are you both wanting tea?"

"We're alright, thanks. Went to Allhallows a couple of hours ago. But we're about here, yeah? Be up in five. Unlock the door.”

“M’kay. Bye.” 

Click. __

He fights through his fatigue and clings to the knob of his slightly ajar bedroom door, the vertigo from rising up from his bed so fast hitting him a little late. And from there he hits the hallway, then the kitchen (he flips on the central light and it doesn't illuminate the entire living room, but it's better than absolute darkness), and then, finally, the main entrance to his flat.

As soon as he unlocks it, it turns from the other side, and Martin takes a few big startled steps back.

"Oh— Martin!" Tim beams, surprised to see him so present. He waves quickly, and then shoves his hands back into his hoodie pockets to keep warm. 

They keep a bit of eye contact in the quiet of the room. Sasha certainly notices, and Martin wonders if she's sick of them doing this yet, because they really do this a lot. She takes the moment to start sliding out of her sneakers.

A Stoker smile is something that's charming and authentic, crinkly by the eyes and a bit scrunched at the nose. Martin sees it all the time — they're friends, after all, — but it's still awful nice to look at, so Martin forgives himself for getting a little flustered over it. Martin gives a small grin back and looks away.

Sasha steps around Tim and launches herself into Martin's side, awarding him with a tight, passionate hug. She tucks her face into his shoulder. Martin really could just melt into the softness of her hair, the scent of her jasmine shampoo, the pure genuinity she seems to constantly radiate. When she steps away, Martin sort of feels like a bit of him is missing.

"Hi, Martin." She smooths out the front of her skirt, and behind her, Tim is struggling to take off his boots. "Am I dressed like I love women? We argued about this on the way up here, Tim and I, so I just need a second opinion.”

Martin doesn't really have to look hard to see that the answer is yes, but he evaluates her outfit, anyway. She’s clad in a button-up shirt patterned like a roller rink floor, brightly colored hoop earrings, a jean skirt that stops at mid-calf, and many, many men's rings on both hands.

He pretends to think hard about it, and ultimately settles on an, “Mm, yeah, I suppose.” She smiles wide and rolls her eyes. 

With Martin as the leader, they all shuffle their way into the living room — Sasha narrowly avoids the shag rug, and Martin tries not to feel too bad. The pair takes the loveseat as Martin lowers himself into the adjacent armchair and the wooden frame creaks as he sits. Sasha crosses her legs beneath her instinctively, socked feet hanging off the edge of the cushion.

“Feels weird to be in the Blackwood household without a good cup of tea.” Tim comments, leaning onto the corduroy arm of it. “Would have brought you something from the cafe, but I didn’t even know we were coming here until Sasha said so.”

“Sasha and her bouts of spontaneity. No worries. How was the library?”

“Well, just as you’d expect a public library might be,” Tim says with an absent wave of his hand, “many books, printers that don’t work, and no shortage of hungover college students. I walked around a bit while Sasha did her thing, and… well, I don’t know. I like it, it’s well-off and grand, but it’s got some odd vibes.”

“No kidding.” Sasha crosses her arms over her chest. “It’s plenty nice, I just always feel like I’m being watched in there.”

“Oh, get a load of this, right, Martin,” says Tim, leaning in, and instinctually, Martin does too, “there’s a shiny glass case of books, and it takes up an entire back wall. I mean, it’s huge. Every book is on a gold plaque and they’ve each got a cryptic literature synopsis carved into them. The spooky aura on those books are incredible.”

Sasha gasps. “The Leitners? Shut up! Melanie tells me all about how weird those things are. I must’ve missed them.”

“Because you chatted up that cute receptionist the entire time. That’s okay. I’ll show you them when we go back, yeah?”

Martin’s never been to the Magnus Civic Library. He knows of its existence, has seen it in passing a handful of times, and hears about it plenty; as of late, it seems to be a destination Sasha and Tim both enjoy, despite their complaints about the energy it holds. He doesn’t have any formative thoughts on it except for that it seems like an interesting place with more secrets than books. 

He’d like to visit some day, maybe see the fabled Leitners.

"Oh, Martin, I have some things for you!” Sasha says, suddenly. She lifts up her hand, wiggles all of her fingers, and then plunges straight into the depths of her messenger bag, searching around for something.This produces some frankly worrying noises — glass objects clinking together, a papery thing being ripped in two, and a loud, tinny thrum as Sasha reaches the very bottom. Martin casts a concerned gaze to Tim, who shrugs in response.

"Gott'm!" she exclaims, and throws out a stack of papers onto the coffee table. Somehow, none of them are crinkled or folded. She looks rather proud of this. "Your mail."

“Thanks a ton. If it was up to me it would have stayed there ‘til next Tuesday.” 

He flips through it. Most of it isn't even his; a bill for the neighbor, a court order for one Jane Prentiss, who had apparently lived in this flat before him, and...

...and one eloquent, small envelope with a red wax-pressed seal and far too many stamps than necessary.

"Pen-pal letter!" Martin announces, pleased, and then his face falls. Something incredibly anxious curls up in his chest, and he starts to bounce his leg a bit. "I’m thinking about how I’m going to respond to this and we haven’t even opened it yet. Is it right for me to be nervous?"

“You get nervous about everything.”

Martin bites at his lip. It’s an awfully pretty envelope. “Will you guys stay awhile and help me write back?”

“We’re not going anywhere, Martin.”

Martin exhales, heavy. “Okay. I’ll go get my pens and some paper, and then... “ he picks up the envelope and waves it around a bit, fanning it through the air like it’s plagued with a fire he’s got to put out, “and then we can read this, and you guys can help me write a response?”

* * *

_Dear Jon,_

_I'm, as I'm sure you know by now as well, Martin K. Blackwood! I also live in London, I'm quite a bit younger than middle-aged (I've just turned 28,) and I'm right-handed. It's a pleasure to be writing to you._

_First of all, my favorite color is blue. Funny, that._

_Second, I've never been someone's penpal before! You say that the first letters are the hardest, but it seems that you've got it nailed to a science, down to the fancy envelope and neat handwriting and everything! I'll try my best to match your prestige going forward. I think it's neat that you're the ambassador for this entire thing; if you're comfortable with sharing, how did that come to be? Do you enjoy it?_

_I'm more of a techie myself. I like the internet and spend a lot of time online, not doing much in particular. I'm a bad texter. I thought that writing to a penpal would be more difficult, but I'm finding that I like it! There's no pressure to respond right away. I have a lot of time to think about what I say._

_As far as authors go, I quite enjoy Comte de Lautréamont, though he writes prose, not novels. Perhaps you'll like him, if you're into surrealism. Les Chants de Malordor is his best work and I highly recommend it (though it can be quite violent and vivid at times, so be cautious)!_

_I prefer tea, but I'd never shy away from a good cup of coffee._

_My favorite song right now is Intersection by Modern Baseball because it's got this neat lived-in lo-fi vibe and makes me feel like I'm the protagonist of a sad indie movie. Solid Gold Glitter by Strawberry Mountain is a close second just because of its associated memories. Otherwise, I fancy anything by Mitski or Björk._

Tim makes an incredibly displeased, guttural noise. "You cannot say that to this self proclaimed middle-aged man. Please, if you know what's best for you, you'll scribble that out. You know that you've just disclosed that you're a 28 year old man who listens to Björk, right, surely you know what that implies? He's probably, like, 42. Martin, what if he's homophobic? He has your address."

Sasha scoffs. "You think a straight man is an ambassador for a pen-pal service named Dear Yvette?"

Martin clicks his pen.

_I often have this dream that I'm wandering an endless beach, directionless. I walk for hours, and then I wake up. There's no one else there, hardly any noise besides the shore brushing up against the sand, and it's sort of peaceful. I've never tried to look up what it could mean because I'm not really that kind of guy, but also I'm afraid of what dreammoods.com might tell me about, well, me, haha._

_I believe in fate, to some extent. I believe that some things are bound to happen, but when a clear choice presents itself, the universe is giving you the opportunity to change things. In any case, it gives me an excuse to chalk up my life's most unfortunate events to something that was out of my control, anyway._

_Here are some questions for you:_

_Do you like poetry? What's your favorite song? What was the worst phase you've ever gone through? What was your major in university, if you attended? Are you a cat person or a dog person? Is there anyone in your life right now that you go out of your way to be nice to?_

_(P.S.! Martin K. Blackwood is the name I go by. My last question: why'd you ask? :P)_

_Yours in Papermate Inkjoy pen,_  
M. K. B.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NEW CHAPTER HELL YEAH !!! here is roughly 4k words of me planting foreshadowing for the rest of the fic. also i just realized that it seems like i'm setting this up to be wayyy more slowburn than intended... i guess we'll just have to see!
> 
> thank u to j, who has hardly listened to tma and agrees to beta my fics because they're the best, and s, who helped with many aspects of this chapter (including sasha's outfit!!)
> 
> ♡ ♡ ♡ hope you enjoyed!! hav a fantastic day !! ♡ ♡ ♡
> 
> p.s. i always read comments i just can never find the right things to say in response but i am Looking and i appreciate everyone's feedback and input so much! it makes me happy to see yall speculating ldfjgldjklgdgj


	4. listening to nobody

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin,
> 
> It's strange that your interests seem to conflict greatly with each other.
> 
> I am already very familiar with Les Chants de Maldoror, a confusing, very macabre and gothic sort of literature. I would say your interpretation of the work being "violent and vivid" is a vast understatement. I used to know someone who owned a recording of the theatrical 1974 production of Maldoror, the one by Andy Wolk.
> 
> They had lent it to me to watch and encouraged me to read the translated prose as well. I fell into a deep existential spiral immediately.

Jon reaches over the wooden plaque in front of him to dip his brush into the small, rusted tin of archival contact glue in the far corner of his desk. He nearly tips over his mug of green tea in the process, the crest of his elbow nudging its rim with an overwhelming amount of force. It teeters violently —

"Shit."

He bites his tongue hard enough to draw blood.

Jon scrambles, gathers up some energy that he really doesn't have, and pulls away fast. With one jerky movement, he seizes the mug by the handle with a grip so tight that it hurts, and then moves the tea as far away from the plaque as possible. A bit of tea splashes up onto his arm and it burns him. His wrist cracks in two different places.

_"Shit!"_

The pain proves itself to be absolutely agonizing.

He leans back in his chair, pressing himself flush against the dark, aging leather. It's _excruciating,_ the way his wrist throbs. Jon attempts to massage it with his uninjured hand, but when kneading at it proves unsuccessful, he digs his nails into the his skin out of frustration. That seems to work. 

With the sharply applied pressure, the terrible aching eases. As Jon's casting a (slightly teary-eyed) gaze to his office ceiling, counting the oddly textured panels and ignoring the spiderwebs hanging low in the corners where the walls meet, the pain starts to dull. 

Jon tries to consider if this is a standard injury by way of his hasty actions or if his disability is rendering him incapable yet again — he hasn't been able to measure what _'normal'_ bodily harm is in a long time. He isn't particularly resilient, and a lot of minor instances have the ability to incapacitate him.

When a wave of exhaustion hits him, suddenly making him feel more tired than he's ever been, he's sure it's the latter. 

It takes him a few moments before he tries to move his hand again. It is, obviously, a mistake; he concludes with a heavy sigh that his dominant hand is now out of commission. He'll have to improvise.

Jonathan Sims is by no means ambidextrous, but he finishes applying the glue the plaque with his right hand. It's a job badly done. As he waits, letting the glue get tacky, he thinks about his day to pass the time. 

For the Head Archivist, this Wednesday was bad as soon as it began. He had arrived to the library later than expected due to his own sheer incompetence — woke up incredibly late, skipped breakfast and his medication in a rush. 

_Maybe that's why I'm so fragile today,_ Jon grimaces, rubbing at the muted ache in his wrist.

He'd gotten there just as an impromptu meeting was ending, and stood frozen as he watched his coworkers file out of the appointed conference room. Daisy and Melanie were the only ones who had spotted him. Daisy had raised her eyebrows in recognition. When Melanie realized Elias was still within earshot, she loudly announced how late Jon was, and offered to catch him up to speed on all of the information he'd missed.

The contemptuous Elias Bouchard, dressed in a well-tailored suit far too formal to be wearing in a public library, was unfairly delighted by the idea.

She beckoned him to follow her to the breakroom, her combat boots squeaking obnoxiously against the wooden floor as she headed its' way and Jon struggled to keep up. He wore a deep scowl the entire time, just in case any passers-by got the wrong idea and thought that he was hanging out with Melanie deliberately. 

It was obvious, as she reached into the fridge and pulled out her food (a stack of items with a pale yellow sticky note tacked on, labelled _'MEL KING'S, DO NOT EAT, I'LL KILL YOU,'_ ) that she had only volunteered to relay the meeting's information to Jon so that she could take an undocumented lunch.

She had drawn it out, of course. Told him everything in harrowing detail, paused once every thirty seconds to bite her sandwich or sip her lemonade. It had taken her a half hour to say exactly three things: there will be a banquet at the library come June, breaks will be shortened by 10 minutes, and Elias has decided to promote her.

"I am now a media resources specialist," Jon remembers her saying gleefully at the end of her tirade, clapping her hands together, "there will be celebratory buttercream frosting cake at 6. You are forbidden from having any."

"Good for you." Jon scoffed back, blatantly uncaring, arms crossed tightly over his chest. 

He fled to his office shortly thereafter, tucked himself into a quite frankly unorthodox sitting position, and worked through two breaks that he probably should have taken. Mostly research for his own articles, looking into a couple of things for Basira, and a physical refiling of every document the library has ever encountered after 2009.

Elias emailed him an hour before what would've been the end of a productive shift, giving him a task he must have known Jon couldn't finish before clock-out and, furthermore, would certainly have to stay late at the library to complete: maintain, mount, and archive a letter older than the library itself. 

Jon presses his pointer finger to glue on the wooden plaque before him; it still could use a little time to dry. He sets it aside on his desk and finally, after all of this time, has the opportunity to focus on the letter that'll be attached to it. 

He unearths a preservatory box from underneath his desk. It's a little thing, carved intricately, and has no lock or closure. Jon can tell from the owl branded onto its side that the box is property of the library itself. He lifts the lid, removes the letter from inside, and delicately unfolds it. 

At first glance, Jon is unimpressed.

The paper is brittle and thin, and Jon finds that the handwriting upon it is decidedly... not elegant. 

It looks like a doctor's penmanship, what with every fourth word being completely illegible, and all of the ink has turned that boorish sepia color that he hates. It's something that only iron gall ink does, becoming brown before it corrodes, fades away entirely. It's, for lack of a better phrase, incredibly ugly. In the corner, there are a couple of stains of what Jon thinks might be tea, the way it's wrinkled up the letter. 

But he tries to read it anyway, as best as he can; it looks to be in pretty good shape, no parts torn or anything of the like.

_To my utmost dearest Jonah,_ it reads, and Jon cocks his eyebrow, _I am looking forward to my arrival to London, and I shall be at your estate in the spring._

Jonah Magnus had an admirer. He hums idly under his breath and continues reading. 

_I am missing you more as the days go by. Without your presence, every rose in my garden seems dreary, every sunset dull, every moment dim. I remain unsure in when this message will arrive to you, but I hope it to be soon, as I would like to hear back from you as soon as allowed. I am infatuated with just the mere thought of you, Jonah. Whether you may return this sentiment is no matter to me._

Jon's brows crease together as he scans the rest of the page. This matter seems private. 

He skims the rest of the page, skipping over the strange details of intimacy, but making notes of locations; Schramberg, London, Millbank Penitentiary, the Magnus Civic Library itself, and finally reaches the bottom.

It is signed poorly: in big, dramatic, loopy letters, _J. A. Fanshawe._

Two photographs are attached to the letter with a small, old wire paperclip, bent in the shape of a square. Jon removes it, hooks it around his finger for safe-keeping, and takes a look at the pictures.

Both are portraits of a young man. It must be that Fanshawe fellow. He's rather put-together, Jon finds, wearing fashion that's typical for what Jon assumes is the mid-18th century; a well-fitting linen shirt, an embroidered necktie, and tiny beige glasses sitting at the tip of his nose. In one, he's smiling a bit nervously, adjusting the collar of his shirt, and in the other, his face has been removed entirely.

Jon tilts his head a bit. 

It's... well, Fanshawe's face has been cut out in the shape of a _heart._

And then everything clicks into place. The face of Jonathan Fanshawe in someone's lovelocket. Probably —hopefully, Jon thinks to himself — in what would have been Jonah's lovelocket.

Jon, himself, is a man reserved in the face of casual romantic relations, and so he forgives himself for getting hot in the face. It's an unfairly sweet gesture, something straight from a movie, and it confuses everything inside him. His emotions feel... skewed, being tugged in a way that he hasn't felt in a long time.

There are butterflies in his stomach.

"Aw."

He then shakes his head, tries to shut the feeling down altogether. He has work to finish. He can't get distracted over this.

He takes the paperclip from around his finger, compiles the photographs back together, and puts them into the preservatory box. There is no room on the plaque to mount the pictures, so he figures he'll just return them to Elias come tomorrow morning and desperately hope that these don't need extra work, too. 

If he doesn't think about it, it should be easy to ignore. 

Jon puts his pointer finger back to the plaque, and is finally pleased when it sticks to the tacky glue. He readies himself for the next and final step of mounting this letter.

Doing this type of meticulous, intricate work is not easy. As the Head Archivist of Magnus Civic Library, Jon's appointed to handle many things of that nature. He tries to be a perfectionist, someone who's obsessed with the notion of doing things right the first time, and it sort of makes his job easier; paying close attention to miniscule details saves him from having to go back and fix his own mistakes. He is dedicated to working hard — and there is often little room for letting something wait until tomorrow, and there are no breaks to be taken, and there are no excuses. 

That's how Gertrude Robinson worked, anyway, and Jon thinks it's important to match her reputation as best as he can, despite his own physical and mental shortcomings.

Gertrude Robinson is the former archivist of the library, the woman who's made that title truly mean something. Fifty years is a long time to be doing... _this._

Jon presses Fanshawe's letter to Magnus onto the mount, and holds it down to make sure it doesn't wrinkle or bubble. He smooths it over with a flat plate, watching any excess glue spill out the side, and scrapes that clean off of the mount with the same tool.

Jon has never met Gertrude Robinson, but her legacy precedes her in many ways.

You can hear about her through stories, whispers, old newspaper clippings on the breakroom wall; there is a framed picture of her near the entrance to the library, one parallel to Rosie's receptionist desk. She's a willowy woman, with sunken cheekbones and hair pulled so tightly into a bun that Jon worries about the stress her temples might be under. The cardigan she's wearing swallows her whole, and her expression is nothing shy of skeptical. She looks, in this photo alone, dominating and confident. 

He would like to also look dominating and confident.

Gertrude had done a lot in her time. Formative thinkpieces, organized funding and sponsorships, outlandish collections for the library that hailed enthusiasts from all over the world to Magnus Civic Library. Her coworkers, ones that she had selected to work with her, went on to do great things. With Gertrude Robinson, the library was in its prime.

What he lacks in complicated intelligence, plentiful accomplishments, and respect from his associates, he tries to make up for with grueling hours of work, but he doesn't feel like it's enough. He's afraid it will never be enough. Nothing he's done so far has deemed him worthy of importance. He is, so far, unnotable, inferior, and insignificant. 

He knows that living in Gertrude's shadow is unavoidable. He admires her just as much as everyone else seems to, and yet it makes him sick to think that he won't even be able to compare in the slightest. Jon wants to be just as good, wants to prove that he's worth something of equal value, that he can do something right. 

He wants his own picture parallel to the receptionist's desk.

But Jon isn't particularly clever. His only achievement is Dear Yvette, and he hardly has any diction over it. The only coworker who can stand being around him for long is Daisy. He's sure these are things that he can't change. 

Then it hits him, how immature and nonsensical he's being.

He's using his right hand to clumsily complete his work, something that could've been easily avoidable if he would just stop being so stubborn about rules and heeded to standard Archivist protocol regarding having tea where tea probably shouldn't be, and wondering about his own validation.

He needs to get it together.

Jon tsks at himself, picks up the glass cover for the plaque (a difficult feat, using his weaker hand,) and slides it into place.

There. Finally finished.

As he sits back to relax for the first time in hours, admiring his handiwork, there's a knock on the door, and it startles Jon half to death. He can't get a break around here, can he?

"Still here?" someone asks, and it takes him a bit to realize that it's Daisy. Under the nearby lamplight, he checks his watch, and finds that it's much later than he could've anticipated. 

"Yes, still here," he responds, belated, "how is it eight already?"

"Time flies. Should I come in, or are you coming out?" Daisy sounds just as tired as he feels. Her tone is flatter than usual. "I hope it's the latter. One of us needs to lock up, and I'm ready to go home."

"I'll come out," he answers, "is it just us?"

"Can you ask me questions after you vacate your office?"

Daisy's bite is enough to convince him to lumber out of his seat. He rises, stretching both arms into the air, and his whole body seems to crack at once. His office chair's wheels squeak with the release of his weight. Jon turns his light off with his left hand, and when there is no pain there to stop him, he almost sighs out of relief — until he realizes he can't feel anything at all.

A numb hand is better than a painful one.

He grabs his cane and maneuvers it around the small, cramped space that is the head archivist's office, grabbing his coat and scarf, slipping both on. Jon feels spent. Today's been long. He turns the knob, then has to linger in the doorway to stay upright. He's more tired than he thought. 

"You look terrible." Daisy tells him. It's more of an observation than anything, and she doesn't linger on it. She looks at his hand on the doorframe, following his fingers closely as they quietly tap out a tune. It looks like she doesn't like it very much; "What are you doing?"

He stops and only half-lies, even though he doesn't need to. "Hand fell asleep. Sorry,"

"Hm? Don't be." 

Jon finally gets a good look at her, backlit by the few lights in the library that always stay on. He traces her silhouette. In one hand, she holds a festive looking paper plate, the contents of which are hidden by a thin sheet of aluminum foil. With her other, she reaches into her denim coat pocket, distressed and full of foreign patches, and pulls out a pack of Marlboros. "Outside?"

"Why do you have a plate?"

She turns on the heel of her boot and makes her way towards the library's front door, and Jon is a little slow on the uptake, but he follows eventually. 

"Cake," Daisy explains to him simply, making their way past the display of Leitners, weaving through the bookshelves, "from Melanie's little promotion rally. You worked right through it."

Jon frowns. The gears in his head start to chug. "Well, she told me I couldn't have any, so I didn't come."

"She was a bit upset that you didn't show." She says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world, "She thought you would come anyway, just to spite her, and she was going to eat cake in your face and send you away." 

Jon doesn't know whether he should be sorry or grateful that he didn't come around the breakroom at 6.

"Oh," is all Jon can manage. 

Jon tries not to make eye contact with Gertrude's portrait as they pass through the reception area and out of the library, onto the set of stairs that lead from the entrance to the street.

The night is cold and brisk and the sky sits at a stage of total darkness. The clouds and stars are drifting together, but they all seem to have one destination. They're gathering around the full moon like it's got something important to say. The streetlights close by flicker, casting its amber glow onto the the library's neatly maintained lawn, onto the trimmed bushes besides the stairs, onto Daisy. 

She's taken to leaning on the railing, and doesn't seem shaken by the low temperature in the slightest, despite the fact that she's not dressed appropriately for the weather; Daisy's wearing the same thing she wears almost everyday, which is a pair of ripped cargo jeans, off-brand boots, and an absurdly light jacket, which seems more for fashion than warmth.

"How was your day?" She asks him, and when Jon lets out a low, dramatic sigh, she laughs a bit. "Here."

Her hands are cold as she passes him a cigarette, which he takes with great relief, fishing into his own coat pocket to produce his lighter; silver, web-crested, and trusty, seemingly never running out of gas. Daisy's is a standard bright blue disposable, one that she has to shake to get to work. They light up at the same time, breathe in, and expel the smoke into the cool air.

"It was subpar." Jon admits after some time, and Daisy doesn't look at him as he speaks. It's easier for him to be honest that way. "Tiring. I injured my hand and nearly had a mental collapse over Gertrude. I've always been unqualified for this job, you know, hardly any library science experience."

Daisy sends him a sideways glance, tapping her cig between her fingers, and ignores the comment about today's breakdown, instead opting for, "how's your hand now?"

"Better than it was before." He says shortly. "Why did you stay at the library so late?"

She shrugs and takes another long drag. "You were still here."

* * *

_Martin,_

_It's strange that your interests seem to conflict greatly with each other._

_I am already very familiar with Les Chants de Maldoror, a confusing, very macabre and gothic sort of literature. I would say your interpretation of the work being "violent and vivid" is a vast understatement. I used to know someone who owned a recording of the theatrical 1974 production of Maldoror, the one by Andy Wolk. They had lent it to me to watch and encouraged me to read the translated prose as well. I fell into a deep existential spiral immediately._

_Yet, despite your enthusiasm about Lautréamont's morbidity, you're a fan of artists like Björk, Mitski, Modern Baseball, Strawberry Mountain. (I'm less familiar with the latter few bands, but I listened to the songs you mentioned and then a couple more.)_

_It was a bit shocking to experience how your music taste and your taste in fiction juxtapose._

_I loathe poetry. We're enemies. I find most poems to be lofty, absurd, and difficult to interpret._

_In terms of my favorite songs, I'm quite fond of To Kelly Lee by The Speed of Sound in Seawater. Fall Out Boy is a guilty pleasure of mine, as I've been a fan since I was a teen, and so is anything by X-Ray Spex, for nostalgic purposes._

_The worst phase I've been through is most likely my crust punk obsession. (Please see the above mention of Fall Out Boy and X-Ray Spex.) In a misguided fit of rebellion, I had cut the sleeves off of all of my shirts and the knees out of all of my trousers, joined a band with my partner at the time, and shaved a good portion of my head. I ran an amateur piercing studio from my dorm room._

_After all of that, would you believe that I attended Oxford, majored in English and had a minor in general history?_

_I became the ambassador for Dear Yvette rather unexpectedly. It was an idea I'd thrown out at a meeting to get my boss to dismiss us, and something I was not anticipating would catch up with me. He enjoyed the pen-pal idea, however, because he is unfairly enthusiastic about most things regarding me, and it was set into motion shortly after._

_If I'm honest, it means very little to me. I don't see it as a big achievement due to the fact that I am hardly in charge of it. From the website design to the advertisement, I'm not in control of Dear Yvette's image. Despite this, I still feel responsible for it and while I don't receive credit for the things that I do to help the program, I put forth my effort anyway._

_There is currently no one in my life that I go out of my way to be kind to, but there is someone who seems to constantly extend herself for me. She's one of my coworkers. I do believe she's kinder to me than most, and sometimes I have difficulty returning the favor because I'm unsure how, but it's something I'll work on. I don't have much experience in befriending others._

_I hope she realizes that I appreciate her camaraderie._

_I'm a cat person. Dogs are fine as long as they're not too big, but I find that they lack a certain type of grace and elegance. That is to say, they scare me._

_(P.S., I asked if that was your real name because it seems silly.)_

_Yours, listening to Nobody,  
J.S._

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is not beta'd. i hope you enjoyed!
> 
> a little look into jon's disability (yo... this man got chronic fatigue), his self loathing regarding his job, and his friendship with daisy... currently setting up some future plot points (:<
> 
> ♡♡♡ have a beautiful day!! ♡♡♡


	5. wondering if you've ever worn black eyeliner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now, to address your crust-punk phase; my impression of you so far has been completely thrown, knowing that at some point several years ago, you were some variant of alternative. I hope that this doesn't offend you, but I'd had it in my mind that you were thoroughly boring!

Martin is growing sick of the smell of his own house.

It's a warm, floral scent, like cheap perfume forgotten in the backseat of a hot car. It clings to everything he owns — it seems to have sunk into the very fabric of his sofa, the peeling pale blue wallpaper in his bedroom, even the socks in his top drawer. (They have stars on them. He can't bring himself to put them on anymore.)

The mahogany bookshelf in the living room stinks of it the most. Martin gags when he passes by it. 

The simple notion of him _growing sick of it_ is an understatement. He's beginning to find it downright repulsive. Not only is it really bothering him, overstimulating his senses to the point of elicited anger, but Martin's unable to pinpoint exactly what it is. It's so _familiar,_ though. 

When Martin wakes up, the sky is overcast and dim. The rain takes on a peculiar sort of pattern — it pours down every ten minutes or so, like it's determined to flood his street, and then it slows to a drip as though it's suddenly had a change of heart. Martin lays there for awhile, in the quiet of the morning, watching specks hit his window and rush down the pane. Bundled beneath his thin sheets, he waits for it all to draw to a definitive halt. 

When Martin realizes that it's not going to, he gets out of bed.

The floor is deathly cold as per usual. Martin hisses when his bare heels hit the ground, grimaces, and then rolls his eyes at himself, because what else would he be expecting? He should be used to this by now, shouldn't he? He ruffles up his bedhead out of habit and feels around on his bedside table for his glasses. He knocks over a half-empty bottle doing so. 

"Fuck."

It irritates him so much that he decides he'll stay blind, thank you very much. It feels like a rebellious gesture. To whom, he's not sure.

Martin, begrudgingly, decides to make his way to his next location: the kitchen. 

A shiver shoots all the way up his spine as soon as he enters and he lets out a low, rolling groan of absolute displeasure. 

The kitchenette window is open, _has_ been open all night, and Martin mumbles a long string of curses that his mum would probably smack him upside the head for saying, even at this age, if she were present to hear it. He clings to the counter besides his sink to stable himself as a breeze rolls in, chilling and intrusive.

_He should just close it._

Martin tries to will himself to pick up his feet and make his way over to the opposite wall, but all of a sudden, it's like they're pasted and pressed to the floor. 

_You ought to move,_ he thinks to himself, but it comes off like a suggestion rather than a command, and his body denies it at once. _If you don't close it now, you might not do it later,_ Martin tries to justify, and every other part of him seems not to care about that very much. 

So it's like that, then. He wrings his hands together, partly out of frustration, but mostly because he feels like he's standing inside a meat freezer and needs to retain warmth. He opts to reach up into his cabinet and grab a mug. It's a nice one, plaid and novelty. He doesn't know where he got it from. He grips it tight with both hands.

Another bout of wind rolls in, and _that's_ when it hits him. Both the smell and the recognition.

_It's roses,_ Martin thinks. _His flat smells like a wet rose cigar,_ old and musty and worn. 

His mum used to smoke those long ago. Southern Draw in the winter, Eden's in the spring, and Belvedere's in between. It wasn't the prettiest habit — his mum would have one with brunch and two more after dinner. 

She had him fetch them for her every Thursday after school, up until he had dropped out, no matter the weather. It was always the worst was when it was _foggy_ out. 

Martin had to take several shortcuts through the woods, a large step over the stream to get home from the corner shop before the sun went down, with cigs in tow. He'd get lost when the clouds were low like that, steeping the trees in mist so thick he could barely see five feet in front of him. He didn't like it, but he also didn't like coming home without the cigars, either. 

Martin furrows his brow. Martin had only stopped after his mum was hospitalized the first time. 

_Maybe,_ Martin's tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip, _maybe that's why her lungs were so eager to go._ All of that nicotine. It wasn't the first thing to collapse, by far. He cringes deep, and digs his nails into his palms. It aches. He tries to explore this more, but it's difficult to remember anything about his mum. Martin tries to snatch some stray thoughts out of the air — his mum started smoking because his dad started smoking, he knows that much, at least, and Belvedere's are his dad's favorite, and — 

Martin sucks in a sharp breath. _Ouch._ He opts to stop there, and cycles back in the thought process a bit. His mum. Why can't he think of his mum?

He finds that he's trembling a bit. He snaps his fingers, the rhythm uneven, and tries to shake the anxiety out through his hands, just to try and calm his nerves. It sounds impossibly loud. A single big tremor ripples through him, hard like the aftershock of a hurricane.

Martin tries to focus on breathing — _in for five seconds, out for seven,_ just like Sasha taught him — but the recollection of his mum, or maybe the lack thereof, is clouding up his head. He tries to imagine his mum sitting at the old dinner table with her legs crossed at the ankle, paperwork and mail and bills that are far past due scattered about, a scene that should be so familiar, and can't. 

He _can't._

But it's not just _this_ that he can't recall. Martin, in this moment, tries to force himself to reminisce, and finds that he really doesn't remember much about _any_ of it anymore. His head hurts. Martin tries to raise shaky hands to his forehead and misses by a mile, palm falling to the scruff on his chin. 

It feels like there are parts of his mind that are missing. When Martin tries to think of just how bad his mum used to be, how many tiring hours he worked at jobs he wasn't legally allowed to have just to pay for her medicine, how ungrateful she was in turn and how bad it made him feel, he has to dig. And even then, he doesn't feel like he's catching the whole scope of it. He wonders, for a brief panicked moment, where it's gone.

Memories that he used to cling to, recollections of former trauma that followed him around like his shadow have somehow started to turn into vague vignettes, smudged and blotted like poorly developed film. It certainly doesn't feel like a good thing. It doesn't feel right, he doesn't feel whole, it doesn't feel like any of this is quite over, but this should make him feel good, right? Martin has once heard that forgetting is the first step of healing.

But the damage has been done, and Martin supposes that _that_ is the worst part. He's hurting, and he doesn't quite recall what for. 

(Is it better that he doesn't know anymore? Would it sting more if he did?)

Martin feels small, and he thinks as such, in definitive, certain terms. _I feel small._ He tries to vocalize it. Sasha makes him do that when he's upset, and he's taken to doing it when he's alone, too.

He finds, all of a sudden, that he can't breathe. 

His lungs ache, and he starts to gasp for air. It feels like he's 15 all over again. His eyes begin to water; everything feels like it's coming down, closing in. 

Martin drops his mug. His nice, plaid novelty mug. It shatters into pieces beneath him and startles him so hard that he leaps back, his waist hitting the edge of the cold kitchen counter, and that's it for his mental state.

Martin sits on the floor. He tries to cry, and somehow, he can't manage to do that either.

* * *

It's been hours.

He's been sitting on the floor for hours now, surely, ass getting sore against the rugged, peeling tile. He's hungry and thirsty and tired and has a headache, but most of all, he's freezing. He doesn't feel much better, but Martin has calmed down. He's made the executive decision to try and feel better now. 

His hands are dry, and he feels like the skin on his fingers will split if he moves them too much. 

It still hasn't stopped raining. Martin eventually works up the nerve to stand, and it's a hassle. His legs are half asleep, and he nearly tumbles over trying to get up, but he does it, and it's a start. _Martin thinks it's a start._

With determination, he lifts a leg. And then another. He's willing himself to move and he's glad that he's able to do so now. _Is that what it takes to function correctly?_ Martin scoffs weakly. _A brief interlude of mental collapse?_ Though, at once, he's in front of his window. With aggressive force, he slams it shut, and feels haughty about it. 

Martin looks down to his feet. There is still chunks of his mug on the ground. He'd forgotten about that... he'll get to it later. 

He locates his phone, and does what he usually opts to do when he's upset; like a confused contestant on _Who Wants To Be A Millionaire,_ he phones a friend.

Tim doesn't pick up. Sasha doesn't, either, but she manages to shoot him a follow-up text: _can't talk rn, out with sierra._ It's followed by a copious amount of random emojis, including a laundry basket, the two girls holding hands, and a milk bottle. Martin quirks a brow.

What is there to do? 

This time, it's a genuine a question. He feels like he ought to talk to somebody. His only friends are Tim and Sasha, and he doesn't want to be bothersome. 

_Pens,_ Martin thinks. _Pens, and paper,_ and his old shitty Spotify playlist from this past September.

* * *

_Dear Jon,_

_I've never seen Andy Wolk's production of Les Chants de Maldoror. Quite frankly, I didn't even know any of Lautréamont's work had been reimagined as a stageplay at all, though surely it was good if it launched you into complete ego death. The best fiction will do that to you, I think._

_Lautréamont's morbidity is just fascinating to me! In my defense, I enjoy artists like Björk and Mitski because they have the same sort of tone. (Maybe that's a stretch.) Regardless, both are able to pull out a lot of different emotions from me. I like media that makes you feel things, rather than media that you have to think too critically about. Do you have a favorite author? Why do you like them so much?_

_I think it's rather admirable that you put your time and energy into Dear Yvette, even if it feels like a burden to you. I know how it feels to put your all into something with no payoff. I'm sorry that you dislike it. Maybe sometime in the future, you can find a way to take charge? I'm rooting for you! :)_

_It sounds nice that your boss likes you enough to take things you say into account, though the way you put it, it sounds like his enthusiasm can be... overbearing. I've never had a boss like that before._

_There isn't anyone in my life that I go out of my way to be nice to, either, though I've got two friends who treat me well. Their names are Sasha and Tim, and they're always there for me. It's strange, knowing that they're looking out for me. If I think about it too hard, it makes me emotional, actually! Recently, more than ever, I've been going through a tough time, and they've been with me every step of the way. I'm really thankful._

_It makes me feel guilty sometimes. Do you ever feel like that? I worry that I'm not pulling my weight, but it's only because I don't know how. I appreciate them, and I tell them that all the time, but I wonder if they really know, you know?_

_Now, to address your crust-punk phase; my impression of you so far has been completely thrown, knowing that at some point several years ago, you were some variant of alternative. I hope that this doesn't offend you, but I'd had it in my mind that you were thoroughly boring!_

_I never would have guessed that you were partial to X-Ray Spex, of all bands, nor would I have predicted you were in a band. How was that experience, by the way? What sort of music did you play? Also, forgive me for being curious, but since you pierced others in your dorm room, I'd love to know if you have any piercings of your own. I had a nose piercing back in high school but I had to take it out for work related purposes._

_I've never had a phase like that. My experiences with self-expression were rather limited due to where I lived and the judgement of my mother, who once frowned at me for wearing plaid patterned socks. Recently, I've been into stationery, novelty pens and heart-shaped notebooks and such, and I think the aesthetic is starting to bleed into my fashion. Yesterday, I purchased a nice blue vest with sunflowers embroidered into it._

_(And I've been thinking about bleaching my hair, but maybe that's just a fantasy of mine. I'm not that bold.)_

_I love dogs. The bigger and fluffier, the better, I'd say. I've always wanted a dog. Cats are fine, they just freak me out a bit. Maybe this is a bit juvenile, but their bones are so small and stuff, I'm afraid I'd break one. I hope that makes sense._

_This letter has turned out to be quite long!_

_(P.S., I can't believe you think my name is silly! I'd say Martin K. Blackwood is a perfectly fine name.)_

_Yours, wondering if you've ever worn black eyeliner,  
M. K. B. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BAM droppin a little martin trauma on you folks on this fine saturday!
> 
> this wasn't beta'd ♡ ♡ ♡ but i hope you enjoyed! a little bit of a more emotionally intense chapter for the folks at home. martin, some vague memory issues regarding his mom, sasha's coping lessons, and my favorite letter i've written to date. like comment subscribe lol i hope you liked this one. ALSO... have a beautiful day!


	6. with a tea card

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It occurred to me recently that pen-pals usually send each other things other than letters at some point. Since we are engaged in regular association, I find it appropriate to start doing so. 
> 
> I've attached some of the tea that I've had today — Yorkshire Red, I do hope you enjoy it — and an antique tea card to the back of this letter. I expect you to send something back to show me that you care about me. (I'm only sort of joking.)

Georgina Barker, head librarian of the Magnus Civic Library, is sick. The underqualified and far less socially adept Jonathan Sims has taken her place.

It was only a matter of time until someone fell ill, though Jon figured it would be him.

Jon's phone buzzed in his burly, too-big coat pocket, one that predates his job at the library by a year or so, just as he was sliding on his most beloved and well-worn pair of Mary Janes by the door. On the other end was his estranged associate, properly congested.

Sounding fatigued and unwell, Georgie asked if Jon could cover her position. 

_Georgie could have just as easily called Melanie, Basira or Daisy,_ Jon figured throughout the brief pauses in their conversation where Georgie halted to blow her nose, the sound muffled through the receiver. Maybe she did, and maybe they'd declined. But this was the first time he'd personally ever been asked for any sort of favor from one of his colleagues at the library outside of Basira's usual demands of having him play document fetch for her, ones of which that he usually heeded. It was about time that someone needed him for something important, and Georgie was — is — a friend. 

He'd said yes immediately. Jon wished her well, and gave the usual _get well soon, ring if you need anything_ spiel, and the following thanks he got in return was nothing short of a sneeze. 

This is all to say that Jon's been sat behind the circulation desk in a chair far too comfortable for his tastes with a mug of Yorkshire Red, has been since 9 this morning. When he's not checking out dissertations or authorizing renewals, Jon has been observing his surroundings. 

Daisy has made herself scarce, as has Basira, and Jon couldn't pin down their whereabouts even if he was being threatened for it. Melanie has, fortunately for Jon, mostly kept to herself, weaving between shelves with a defined pep in her step to put returned books back where they belong. She's also been nursing the media corner, a bright but unkempt area just beyond the study tables. 

Jon watches now as Melanie approaches a short, lithe woman with hair cropped close to her scalp, patrolling their small section on dermatology literature. She looks dull and lifeless. Her clothes are oversized, though they hang off of her as though she's sopping wet, ill-fitting and clinging to what looks like a protruding ribcage, the dip in her stomach. The woman is aged, poorly bleached hair tossed up into a ratty topknot.

They know each other, Jon can gather, the way Melanie claps her on the back open-palmed, startling her out of her sway. He hears vague bits of their conversation; the woman's voice is husky, slow, and Melanie's overtakes it by a longshot. _Sarah,_ he hears Melanie call her. When the conversation turns sour, something sure to give Jon secondhand embarrassment as he Melanie cracks a joke and fails at the execution, he turns his attention away. 

There are better things to focus on than his coworkers, anyway.

The main floor of the Magnus Civic Library, well, it's all... far more _handsome_ than Jon remembers it being. 

Dim, sunless light is flooding in through the library's grand Palladian windows, and it makes the interior of the place look massive, borderline behemoth in nature. Architecturally, it's as delightful as it is imposing. Jon hardly ever even sees the main floor of the library, what with his job as archivist; usually, he's confined to a windowless room in the back, a shoddy and small thing, decorated in peeling wallpaper and reeking of dust and decaying newsprint. 

The walls of the library are tall, pillared, and decorated with thin, beige stripes. A couple of chandeliers are hung up. They fill the library with a weak, warm light, but they flicker — Jon can't recall those being there when he was first employed, and they're awfully expensive-looking. Arching overhead are beams of dark wood that cross over one another like gingham and below are rows of bookshelves carved from mahogany, the sides embossed with phrases in Latin that Jon's afraid he'll never understand. Towards the right wall are the customaries; old research computers that cough and whir when turned on and a few tables filled with exhausted university students making valiant attempts at studying. There is a mezzanine floor that hangs over the rest of the library, and Elias, with an unassuming smile and a wave of the hand, tends to claim that the floor has been inaccessible since the late 70's.

Jon lifts his mug and takes a long, slow sip. He pretends that he doesn't see that it's left a hazy white heat ring on the surface of the circulation desk.

He's stricken with awe and a little bit of disbelief. Georgie has the pleasure of sitting here and seeing this view every single day while Jon is confined to the broom closet he calls his office. Jon grows a bit green in this moment, eyebrows creased to himself with envy, well, that's no one's business but his own, is it?

Though, it's useless to think about. Jon takes another long, slow sip, and leans back in his — _Georgie's_ — chair, nursing his cup of tea with both hands. He doesn't want her job. Jon couldn't ever have her job.

He couldn't sit in this chair, operate this impossible computer, and chatter all day with the elderly and grade school students alike, checking out their books, socializing with peers. Jon has a low tolerance for socialization and has to make everything in his life harder for himself to feel like any of his previous struggles were ever worth anything. And he wouldn't ever be content with it, the way that Georgie is. It wouldn't be enough for him. 

Jon sighs. None of that, not right now. 

He reaches up, sleeves of his cordknit jumper falling down and bunching at his elbow, and messes with his hair a bit just to have something to do with his hands. This is, apparently, where Jon's mind goes when left to his own devices for too long. Vague self-loathing over nothing in particular.

He grimaces and opts to reach into his messenger bag; a beat-up and worn thing from university, and pulls out _Pierre, or the Ambiguities._ It's a hardback, mousy brown and weatherworn, two pounds fifty in the bargain bin at the thrift. 

He places it on the small bit of circulation desk that's not covered in Georgie's things, colorful pens and Polaroids of her and Melanie that he's been careful not to disturb, and flips it open. Frankly, this book is nothing special, aside from the fact that it's been critically acclaimed as just outright bad, though Jon is willing to try anything once. He's been sloughing through it. 

It's something to do, at least. Jon flips it open to his last page, the very start of chapter six. 

_Most melancholy of all the hours of earth, is that one long, gray hour, which to the watcher by the lamp intervenes between the night and day; when both lamp and watcher—_

The atmosphere of the library decides to turn against him.

Halfway through the first sentence, the library's heavy doors open. He hears Melanie croon a greeting. It doesn't echo, but it's definitely too sweeping of a welcome for ordinary library guests. It's not loud enough to make Jon look up from his literature, to have him chastise her, for him to bite and shush at her, but he'd like to. 

Jon clears his throat to himself, finds his spot on the page before him again, and starts over.

_When both lamp and watcher—_

"Melanie! I'm surprised you haven't been fired yet." Jon hears. His concentration snaps in half. The voice is warm and brisk. It sounds like it belongs to a man who's used to _practically shouting in a library._ Jon partakes in a light grinding of teeth.

_When both lamp and watcher, over-tasked, grow sickly in the pallid light; and the watcher—_

Melanie scoffs. "I got promoted, like, last week! You're looking at library media resource specialist Melanie King. I'm moving on up in the world, you know. You'd better be nice to me." 

"I'm too pretty to know what that is," someone else admits, tone so dry that the statement just sounds like a daring amount of honesty. Her voice is well-bred, even if it is a little clipped around the edges, very upright and concise in nature. She's quiet, but not meek. 

Jon begins to wonder how she has so many friends. She's not even pleasant. Melanie feigns hurt. "Offensive! So, what, you just showed up to mock me? Berate me about my status, that's it."

"Absolutely. We came here to make fun of you. Here, I'll start with a few good ones. Sarah Michelle Gellar called. She wants her haircut back. Also, that flannel you've got on makes you look like every teen Hot Topic worker in London who's ever tried to bum a cigarette off of me." The woman lays out, voice nonchalant. It's quiet a moment before all of them break into hushed laughter.

Melanie starts a sentence, though before she can respond properly, the man in the group cuts her off. "I'm not even sure why you've got a media resource specialist position. You break every electronic device that you touch and you can't set up a television to save your life."

"Hey, hey!" Melanie interrupts, "This is sapphic assault."

"Suck it up, Peppermint Patty." 

Jon huffs through his nose, trying hard to fight the grin that inevitably creeps across his face. It's an act now; he spends a few more seconds pretending he's reading the page before him, licks his finger, and turns it. Jon is almost sure that there are no eyes on him, but he can never be too careful. There have been plenty of times before that he's been caught eavesdropping through eye contact. 

"Do you even have a library science degree? Any sort of technical degree?" Jon catches, and is quite interested himself to hear the answer. "Isn't that typical for this sort of occupation?" 

_"No,"_ Melanie shoots back, voice dropping to what must be a whisper for _her_ but is most definitely just a normal volume for anyone else, "and I'm not sure if my boss knows about that or if he just doesn't care, but both cases, _keep your voice down._ That's not really what my position is about, anyway. I'm mostly handling the cassette tapes and old DVDs and things. Technology that anyone under the age of 18 looks at and gags about."

"Why're you still stacking books then?" 

"It's a very small library!" She exclaims, faking disheveled. "Now, go. Bugger off. Leave me alone. First, you insult my haircut, and then you question me? I have to put up this entire cart of books — oh, you'd never believe how much working at a library would make you hate the word books — before lunch. Before you ask, no, the sci-fi literature didn't move. It's right where it's always been."

"Thank you!"

In the corner of his eye, Jon sees them part ways — and as he looks up, thinking he's just about safe to glance about, someone is approaching. 

Someone is approaching _fast._

It briefly triggers his fight or flight response. 

"Incoming— sorry, sorry!" 

He's a blur. The man has a stack of books tucked underneath his chin, held close to his chest with brawny arms, but despite his top-heavy build it seems like he's about to tip over. And rightfully so, Jon thinks. As he's rushing forth, his feet just a second behind the rest of him, he catches a glimpse of some of the titles etched on outward facing spines. _A Discovery of Witches,_ Harkness. Several different copies of _A Fine Balance,_ Minstry. Some magazine that looks to be an American National Geographic, going by the colors roping the spine.

Jon has just enough strength and time to neatly slide his bookmark in between the pages of _Pierre,_ close it, place it on the desk before him and push it aside.

At once, the circulation desk is nothing but pages. Everything he was holding slides out of his hands at once, just barely making it onto the surface. Some almost avalanche into Jon's lap, and one nearly knocks over his mug. "So many books, I wasn't really anticipating that they'd be so weighty! I got ahead of myself." 

"Returning these, are we?" Jon grinds out, nearly simultaneous. 

He chuckles like Jon's just told a good joke, not at all sheepish, and it's the sort of odd response that catches Jon off guard.

The man before him is good-looking, and very much so. The way that he carries himself tells Jon that he knows it. He's squared with confidence and is dressed nicely, if not a little eccentrically; a brightly patterned jumper under a dull jacket that fits him just right and nicely shows off the broadness of his chest. He wears a gold triangle in one ear. 

Jon takes note of the scar on his brow, jagged and small and deep. The way he holds is jaw is not unlike the way Daisy does — itching to speak but too caught up in thought to do so. It seems like it's been ages since he's gotten a proper haircut or had a good, satisfying rest, but it works for him. Still, his eyes twinkle like he's brand new, glancing around with controlled vigor and enthusiasm. 

Oh, he's been staring. 

Jon averts his eyes.

"Oops. Hold on," the guy says, and reaches into the pockets of his sweatpants and jostles around a bit. Eventually, with a proud grin, he produces a library card and slides it to Jon across the mahogany surface between them. His nails are painted a dark, chipping forest green. Jon's favorite color. When he tries to accept it, their fingers brush. 

His heart catches in his chest, and he almost wants to scoff. _Really,_ Sims, burning up over a _hand touch._ He's a poor touch-starved fool. It means nothing, he's sure. Jon isn't sure he wants it to mean anything, even, but it uproots him from whatever he was feeling prior so abruptly that he's unsure what to do with himself.

Eventually, Jon settles on merely just looking at him, eyebrow raised with remnants of something he himself isn't even sure of. The man has the nerve to cock an eyebrow back, mischievous, a little challenging. Goddamn.

Jon retracts his hand from the table after a moment or two passes, shakes it quickly like he's been burned, and holds it to his chest. 

"Hey, so have you got a name, or—"

 _"This_ is where you've been the entire time? Really?" A woman approaches, cutting him off. It's a familiar voice; Jon gathers that this is the woman from earlier. She slides up next to the man before him, and he quirks his brow at Jon. It's, unfortunately, a handsome gesture, one that easily says 'guess I've been caught,' and Jon is starting to feel a bit overwhelmed. His heart is going to give out by the end of the day. 

She looks to Jon, and her stern look softens. "Hi! You're not Georgie."

"No, not quite," Jon manages to say to her.

Tucked beneath both arms are books that have no discernable connection to one another, no two books ever in the same genre. Three books on the general history of the Russian circus as well as an Israeli cookbook are snuggled in the tight space of her elbow and her side. The diary entries of Anne Lister and Marie Kondo's _"The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up,"_ are in the other. 

"I was returning your books like you asked me to. I wasn't expecting them to be so fucking — pardon my language — so _fucking_ heavy. I almost killed this man, tipped right over and made a mess of the desk."

If three's a crowd, four's a killing. Melanie waltzes into Jon's periphery. She gives Jon a mean-spirited look. Instinctively, he closes in on himself, pulling away from the counter to lean back into his seat. He crosses his arms. "I see you've met our worst," Melanie chirps to them, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. 

"These are your friends." Jon states slowly. 

Melanie shrugs and leans all of her weight onto the desk, which shoves some of the books splayed on the circulation desk towards Jon. One threatens to fall to the floor, and he catches it before it does, closing it properly and placing it aside. "Sure. My ex and my caretaker."

"Neither of us have ever dated you," one of them says at the very same time that the other complains, "Even though it sure feels like it, us agreeing to hang out with you on Saturdays does not account for caretaking." 

"Gang, this is my workplace enemy," Melanie declares, and Jon rolls his eyes with such force that it hurts, tightens his crossed arms even further, and it's a mistake. Melanie takes notice and spurs on, "the bane of my occupational journey. A general nuisance. A pest. A—"

"Melanie, you menace. Leave the poor man alone, let him handle our books."

Jon detaches himself from the situation at once; he can feel himself getting a bit too worked up. There are books before him, anyway. Ones to check out, maybe even some to renew. Oh, you'd never believe how much working at a library would make you hate _books._

He gathers himself. Jon tries to shake off the momentary fluster of it all, and focuses on the library card before him.

 _Magnus Civic Library,_ it reads. _Timothy Stoker._

* * *

_Martin,_

_I suppose in the case of media consumption, we're quite opposite. It's not as though I dislike fiction that elicits strong emotional responses, but I prefer reading and watching things that make me think. I don't have a favorite author, though I do have a favorite book. Call me a clichéd academic, but I enjoy The Secret History by Donna Tartt for reasons that you can most likely guess yourself._

_I often feel as though I don't pull my weight, but not quite for the same reasons that you do. My predecessor is highly esteemed and I have a difficult time trying to live up to her status in my workplace. At risk of being too vulnerable with a man I've never met, I'll openly admit that it's something that I struggle with a lot._

_To address your concerns about my crust punk phase; shock is usually the response I get when I open up about my university experience. I'm not offended._

_My band experience was thrilling and short-lived. As aforementioned, I joined with my partner at the time. It was her idea; she played the bass and had taught me how to handle the guitar. We did covers of other songs that were popular at the time and hardly wrote our own music — a mixtape we distributed once upon a time only had five or six original songs on it, none of which are memorable. We were quite popular amongst the alternative scene in our area and played a couple of gigs at our surrounding underground venues for spare cash. We disbanded half a year after our initiation for a number of reasons, including a tragic breakup and a disappearance of a member. Alexandra Trujillo, her name was. Look her up if you feel so inclined._

_I had several piercings of my own. My septum, my left nostril, my tongue, and my right eyebrow were all victims of myself, a needle, and surgical steel by the time I was twenty. They were all impulsive decisions made on nights where I was deeply intoxicated or couldn't sleep. Of course, I don't wear any of them anymore, and it's been quite awhile since I had any of them in last. Here is a question, since I don't believe I've asked one yet: do you have any tattoos? I have a stick and poke tattoo of an eye on my ankle. It's faded._

_I admire the way that you describe your current "aesthetic." It sounds pleasant. I've long since attached myself to a branding of style, and I personally think that I'm too old for one, though if I could fantasize, it'd be 'futuristic space pirate'. If not that, then maybe 'comfortable properly distinguished tutor'._

_It occurred to me recently that pen-pals usually send each other things other than letters at some point. Since we are engaged in regular association, I find it appropriate to start doing so. I've attached some of the tea that I've had today — Yorkshire Red, I do hope you enjoy it — and an antique tea card to the back of this letter. I expect you to send something back to show me that you care about me. (I'm only sort of joking.)_

_(P.S., what does the K. stand for, anyway?)  
(P.P.S., I did wear black eyeliner. Horrible and smudged. It was not, nor will it ever be, flattering.)_

_Yours, with a tea card,  
J. S._

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> updating this gave me so many issues... like comment subscribe for the tragedy that was me uploading and taking this down THREE TIMES because it wouldn’t show up at the top of main feed 
> 
> consistent update schedule starts NOW by the way!!! every Saturday i will be giving you guys parchment pale! ok have a beautiful day!


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